


Lothairaxl

by DrellVerse



Series: Drell, Mass Effect, Among Other Sorties [4]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Alternate Universe, Thriller, post reaper war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 07:22:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 43
Words: 89,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29185479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrellVerse/pseuds/DrellVerse
Summary: 2190. Four years after war in which Braith Shepard, Commander of galactic unity, destroyed the Reaper AI and brought an end to culling that reaped worlds of most advanced species. Space is still a cold, dark place. To connect citizens and supplies, navarre are established: great fleets of ships for distributing trade as well as protection. Lives have been moved and restarted in what is now the ‘Citadel of the New World’.Relays are rebuilding. Braith Shepard works with the Galactic Union to monitor Keepers and await what she has determined will be the next threat to come through once these are fully operational. Will she be alone in her concern, or will the current state of the galaxy enable her to keep everyone on their feet. . . Meanwhile, Thane’s son, Kolyat Krios, looks for work and Casnar Soterios, an uncle with a lust and a deep reach is interested in exploiting what was never his. The fair and cheat will vie for control in what is now the new stakes of galactic supply, distribution, and free trade. What leaves in the wake of disaster as epic as Reaper War?
Relationships: Thane Krios/Female Shepard
Series: Drell, Mass Effect, Among Other Sorties [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2009026
Comments: 57
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [A/N1] Follows outline with freewrite routine. Will post when time and interest allow. Expect Drell. Old faces, new. Just a breath of air while resting between writing for The Martyr Effect, Dragon, NIM and the Soul, etc., and artwork.
> 
> [A/N2] Story is laden with crude language, abuse psychological and physical. Involves subplots and re-swelling a galaxy with trade. Law enforcement. Antagonists. Shepard and her relationship with Thane are healthy, not destructive. Going into this story, do not assume that people who are in a relationship will be committing the abuses to one and other. Separate entities come and deal with emotional turmoil, acting outwards in destructive ways, both to self and others. Story dabbles in science fiction, nuances of trauma, crime. There is no clear line for the ones seeking self destruction. Much grey as mental issues are complex, sad, and sometimes founding.  
> As story progressed, it went the way of deeper subplots. Though heavy with sexual intensity, abuse, there is a story beyond the scenes. It does not condone sexual violence or acts of depravity. As the story unfolds, victims, villains, and heroes have moments of weakness and power. A ‘no holds barred’ approach, it may make some uncomfortable. Having hesitated from continuing the story, it is a bridge to cross. See how far it goes. . .

Lothairaxl. A place to visit. Spend a day there and leave. All the bells and whistles of a new car until you learned the cost to maintain it outvalued the price. Over four million aliens, among these human, asari, volus, krogan, turian, batarians, vorcha, and drell. Hanar were present, but in few numbers. There was no telling what inhabited the sewers. Evolution continued its blight on the denied and regressed. Above water tunnels that fed life in and out of the city, alleys seeped with trash and bodies. The latter meandered to and from work, errand, home, debauchery. Lothairaxl was not without elegance.

Higher in the city's skyscape was the architecture of centuries' worth of technology. Bridges spanned chasms of city. Through them sped traffic: bilinears and sky runners, omnichunnels and private frigates. The main bay of transport and commerce, the center of the city, welcomed the combined military, navy, and star force birds of several Council species. To attack Lothairaxl would have been akin to activating a volcano, everything pouring out the middle to cover the city around it. It was, in essence, a close second to the Citadel.

There was no sin better than free sin. Along the corridor of Ve Boulevard, prostitutes exercised their right to sell. Limbs extended from under warm coats and foreign furs. Men and women lived a better life than pleasure traders on other planets. The cost to fornicate in one of the lavish hotels along the strip consumed a client's credits, but skills brought volus to bankruptcy and krogan to knee. Anyone with a fortune could afford the upper class courtesans. To keep their service was a greater challenge. Providers could be as prejudiced and sparing as he or she wished, often leading to greater sins of jealousy, assault, and murder. It was not uncommon to find a beautiful woman in a disposal unit, or a lover in rado cuffs being stuffed into the trunk of a skyrunner. Even under neofluorescent lights of the higher caste districts, love and hardship was found to no less a degree than in the passages of the lower city.

In the worm tunnel of a middle class thoroughfare, a human was kicked to death by a gang of batarians for debt he was unable to pay. Wife and mother to the human’s offspring cowered inside the hovel, their home, worn hands torn by life's thorns over ears of innocence and hope. There would be no dinner tonight, every last credit and object of value given to the gang by feeble hands now crushed. No way to bury the dead in a city made of metal, mother and son would need to leave soon as the tunnel was clear. To stay longer would invite the Eaters, those who scavenged the lost and weak as well as the corpse left to air out in the slum. Furtive glances and scraped hands guided them from the breathless human, tears the only thing fresh in their entire stale existence.

A war memorial in the middle of the city, a marker for where the first Reaper fell in 2186. Four years later, the destruction had been collected, organized, and reclaimed. Reaper tech existed throughout Lothairaxl. It could not simply be thrown away. No place to put it. The quality of the technology was perfected over aeons. Clever minds saw ways to exploit the materials. There was no potential for indoctrination. Commander Braith Shepard had destroyed that capability when she activated the Crucible. Beyond Lothairaxl’s outer defenses, relays drifted in space undergoing repair by strange life forms. Since the destructive code Braith enacted to wipe out the Reaper Intelligence and its integrated technology throughout most (if not all) synthetic life, no species had been able to make physical contact with the relays other than to die where they docked. Life forms subjugated by Reapers and charged with management of the relays became highly active, aggressive. Life forms all considered Keepers whether or not they resembled the insectoids of the Citadel. Everything in ruin, they were programmed with the sole purpose of reconstruction and defense. Keepers guarded their posts against foreign salvage crews with lethal results.

There was no easy way to jump from system to system those days. Significant progress had been made with the rebuild after the war, thanks to Commander Shepard's uniting every race of alien throughout the Milky Way (the one exception being yahg). Old habits died hard, however. The strong preyed on the weak. The vulnerable were exploited. Personal gain meant survival. Each day went by with more minds searching, clinging to shared mindsets once discovered. The galaxy had to make ends meet. Point A needed connection with points B, C, and so on. Mass relays inoperable, fleets of surviving species organized into sovereign supply lines. A new age of distribution and transportation, where to trade goods a company or nation required a _navarre_ of highly defensible and heavily armored frigates. Safe and _certain_ travel necessitated hiring of mercenaries and ships. A militaristic government could mandate its flight-enabled citizens to serve with meager stipends. Supply and demand determined rates for protection and delivery. Many took to free enterprise.


	2. Chapter 2

_"Thane, what time are you coming home? . . . Oh. . . Disappointing. . . No, I don't need anything. . . You in one piece (_ laughter _). . . I love you, too. . . Yeah? . . Well, when you get here I'll have that_ and _another surprise for you. . . No, you'll have to come home—I'm not going to tell you over the connection. You'll just have to wait like you're making me wait. . . Okay, be safe? Hold on. Kolyat! Come talk to your father before he has to go! . . . What's that? . . . Someone's at the door? . ."_

* * *

The screen slid to right and minimized, another displaying the news scroll before Kolyat swiped up and sent the feed away. He tapped his inmail and filtered through the dozen or so addresses to find his private account for communication between his father and himself. It was a secure inmail system with three different requirements of entry: retinal, manual, and as his omnitool opened the lens and scanned the unique scale in the middle of his forehead (no one was alike), Kolyat identified himself to the VI and gained access to messages his father sent.

Today was different. He had a job interview. No throwing on jeans and pullovers to lounge with his uncle and Tiran. No girls. Just focused preparation. It had been a few months since his last interview and although he was in no dire need, Kolyat was itching with the lack of employment. Training at home in the high rise penthouse above Satin District and keeping physique in shape was barely enough to keep happy. He wanted a return to wetwork _Panos_ had engaged him with prior to war. His entire professional network had been wiped after everyone dispersed from the Citadel. He had barely made it to Lothairaxl, where his father had instructed him go in the event Reapers should hit.

Rapidly scanning messages, Kolyat located the initial conversation that provided information about Nolyn Enterprises:

- _Kolyat,_

_After giving thought to your request, I have decided to reach out to my contact at Nolyn. It is likely my name will acquire you an expedited interview with the chief officer. I cannot promise anything glamorous, but you can expect an offer of employment—of this I have no doubt.-_

He would need to bring a list of references and qualifying work experience. Pushing the inmail out of the way with his finger, Kolyat tapped his contact groups and highlighted ‘Assholes’ halfway down the list. He looked over the names of his close teammates, remembering with calm acceptance they were all dead. Why did he keep them? He was a sucker for sentiment. Each name was confirmed dead or missing by either surviving friends or family, people who all said they would vouch for him if he ever had need.

Printing a new list of professional references from his teammates’ families and friends, Kolyat ended the contacts program and keyed into his bank account. His father had set up trust. In the event of his death, all assets would be automatically transferred to Kolyat as beneficiary. The trust was already padded with a substantial amount, and Kolyat was above the age limit of which he was permitted access to ten percent of the current value. It was enough to endow him a comfortable living. His father's sense of responsibility was one of the redeeming qualities about the drell. Kolyat was grateful his father had found him.

It was two after midnight and Kolyat felt more at ease. He doused the glare of the omnitool's display light and placed the device on his nightstand. Awash in moonlight through the sky windows, Kolyat reached for his glass of _dahlk rohais_. Ice clinked inside the Suellen crystal as he brought the drell whiskey to his teal lips, a traditional toast that marked new beginnings.

Sometime in the dwindling hours of night, Kolyat dreamt of living on Kahje in Moor Bay with his mother. His father was not in the dream. He had been absent throughout Kolyat's childhood. Through windows lined above a kitchen counter could be seen a grey storm. Gusts of wind bent limber trees and buffeted wide, serrated fronds. Breakfast on a white table, and Kolyat knew its aroma by sight. A sautéed meat with heated vegetables and cool fruit. His mother would not touch her food, though it was her favorite meal. Her yellow hand covered the lower half of her face. She hardly finished excusing herself when she stood and hurried across the tiles to begin coughing into the sink. Kolyat, as a child, had been frightened when he first witnessed the event, and still experienced the tinge of fear from seeing it replayed in his dreams. Every time he would go to his mother and touch her arm at the elbow, ten-year-old voice asking if she was well. His mother's hand would touch her belly, and she would smile down at him to assure everything was fine. He could recall her clothes smelled of sweet spice.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [A/N3]: Breaking one 2021 rule and reusing character from OCverse. Rules be guidelines anyway.

_"Casnar will never marry. It is his hope that Kolyat will be heir. . . No, I can't force him to settle down, Irikah. You should be happy. . . Kolyat will never want for lack of wealth. . . Are you sure you don't want your father and I to help? . . . Last we spoke, you didn't sound so confident in your husband's new job. . . Ah. . . He's freelancing? . . Oh. . . Good. . . I bet he's so much happier. . ."_

* * *

The chime went off, marking rise for the new day. Kolyat confused it with the sound of audio interface in his old home, disoriented by actual wake up on his omnitool. His hand searched for the device he placed down next to his drink several hours earlier and silenced it. Moving from the bed to the bathroom, Kolyat stared out through wide rectangular windows that afforded him view of several skyscrapers two streets away. Caught in his gaze was a thoroughfare and one major intersection of skyrunners. Beyond that, pale mauve horizon above distant hills. They were larger than he realized the first time he visited them. The hill chain had no name, but were considered part of Lothairaxl’s rolling land beyond city borders.

He stripped out of sleep clothes and turned on the shower, preferring a rinse to just pulling on fresh clothes. He had bathed the night before, so shower in the morning was a luxury he chose not to pass up. Not after days _without_ hot water during war. On the edge of a jacuzzi was his current reading material, lent by his father. A copy of _Atlas_ , his father said it was a love story deep down, and spoke long winded prose about Old Earth. His father was into that type of reading, but love stories?

Beside the sink sat two magazines in contrast: a copy of current ARMs catalogue, featuring handguns this edition, and a foreign alien terrestrial porno, covered by buxom asari with commando gear ripping down the middle. Kolyat did not care much for blue stare hoarders on the front, but in the back pages was a small interview of his good friend, Hilaeira, a local mechanic. While he brushed his teeth in the shower, he wondered if his cousin, Tiran, would have seen the new periodical. He would have to give Tiran the copy, what with the drell's crush making the _Hot Pros_ cut.

Kolyat took two flights down to enter the lower rec area of his high rise apartment. Turning on lights, wall cases lit to exhibit an arsenal of weapons from time working with _Panos_. Among his guns were his father's personal pieces, given to Kolyat for study and enjoyment. _The_ _Widower_ was among them, its name conjuring ill irony for the brooding drell. From time to time, he pulled it off shelf to marvel at the heaviness. This had been a weapon well-favored by Commander Braith Shepard, who Kolyat had not seen since the early days of war. Kolyat could not see the woman wielding it, but his father insisted it was the truth. Exaggeration and lies were foreign to the man, silence much preferred when he wished to not reveal something, or had already stated what he wished to say.

Kolyat had a very comfortable life, an almost opulent set up. Living high above slums, Lothairaxl gave him view and a balcony with fresh air. He could easily cleanse himself of the filth he would descend into on his way to the clubs, to meet up with friends, or to visit his father. Down he went that morning, dressed to his full six feet in suit and tie. He wore a matching coat that pronounced the teal blue skin and black markings covering his scalp.

The vert lift opened to lobby level of the hotel and he stepped out on a crimson carpet. On his right through steamy windows could be seen families splashing in pool, some eye-catching women diving from edges to race laps with each other in fifty meter lanes. To his left was a twenty-four hour buffet, packed with hotel guests and neighbors seeking hot food and fresh fruit. Sweet pastries and fragrant liquids added to breakfast fodder. There was a diverse menu for every species, the _2121 Hotel_ having shown the city it knew how to take care of its residents and tourists for over seventy years (the owners were human). To the front and throughtall glass doors revolving to let out and in the flow of bodies, for-hire skyrunners could be seen moving into place along the ambulatory. One by one each driver replaced the vehicle ahead as soon as it departed, opening doors to travelers and commuters next in line. The name of the transportation company was _The Local Axis_. He would not be using it, more in the mood to see the finished detailing of his _Coalan_ bilinear. Kolyat made way towards the concierge in an immense rotunda. Behind the semicircular desk were stairs and vert lifts to a garage. His glossy black gaze landed on an alert, violet-tinged salarian, nicknamed Sal. It was nowhere close to his real name. Kolyat called to him as he strode passed in interview attire.

"Hold my calls, Sal," he joked, "I'm heading out."

The salarian squinted amphibious copper eyes. Sal knew Kolyat's father personally from having acted liaison to the senior drell's past employer. Weaving dextrous fingers between each other, Sal blinked and lifted his chin towards the young Krios ‘heading out’.

"Crews have finished with your _Coalan_. Keys will be in ignition, sir. Any chance you'll be seeing your notorious uncle today?"

Kolyat's step hitched and his handsome countenance flicked on a lopsided grin. How did Sal always know who he was going to see?

"I'm on my way to him now. . . Want me to deliver a message?"

The salarian seemed pleased. "Indeed, sir. Tell him: next time he spends the night entertainingwomen friends in the sauna, I will have him dragged out naked and left in the street."

Kolyat's expanded smile showed that he understood Sal's reference to debauchery that had transpired over the weekend. Sal dipped his chin and gave him an impish grin in return. "Good luck today with your interview."

Striding into motion, Kolyat shook his head at the salarian's ability to even know his agenda. He figured he must have worked in salarian intelligence before war. The doors to the stairs opened ahead of Kolyat unawares and legs came through under an armload of boxes.

Sal's eyes protruded from his long face. "Mr. Krios!"

Aside from his name being called out in warning, the smell of spice caught in Kolyat's throat and he stopped in the nick of time. The tower of boxes neatly danced out of the way. Collision averted, Kolyat stared after the small figure meant to be concealed in long baggy cargos and a tucked office shirt cinched together by a belt. The deliveryman seemed to twirl as if to check for any more dangers, stopping in front of Sal's desk and deloading to the floor. Kolyat saw it was a female drellahna, her eyes luminous and dark green as the color of her scales, arms wrapped with black banding. Four eyelids fluttered prettily at the salarian, though the mouth lacked the smile that could have enhanced her visible attractiveness. Right away Kolyat could see she was a decade younger, perhaps no more than fourteen. He was used to the sight of delivery personnel coming and going from the _2121_ , but she was younger than most, and he had never noticed her. Sal was intent on signing the order, and Kolyat's omnitool was pinging. He waited a second longer, trying to place a name on the drellahna because for some reason she struck him as someone he knew. His perfect memory pulled up nothing. Kolyat hoped she would make a repeat appearance. For now, he had to meet up with his buddies for breakfast.

Up city a way from the Satin District and tucked into the more secure area of affluent war survivors, Casnar Soterios was committing two drellahna to his own memory. Rolling in the sheets with they from Ve Boulevard, the virile male ceased his exertions and collapsed onto his expensive guests. The drellahna squealed with heavy weight of his shredded physique on top of them, squirming to fondle the smooth angles of his yellow jaw and brow. They encouraged him to rise and continue on.

"Darlings, I need to go," he explained, glancing at the time on the wall. "I have a breakfast date and I won't keep them waiting." His powerful neck lifted his head out of the pillow, turning and peeking roguishly at them. "Let's go play in the shower so we can at least _start_ to get ready."

His chest muscles indented as he pushed up and hopped to his feet on the bed, stepping down with the two drellahna staring after him in appreciation. Casnar was still hard from pleasuring them and his voice trembled from an impossible deepness to coax both out of bed. Applying the skill only drell fathers could teach their sons, the array of skin folds over his throat (a _tebris_ ) swelled and shivered. He produced the subharmonic waves that excited the drellahna, their pupils already dilated from his earlier usage. Their rose and vermillion skins scented outwards with natural venom and oil released with the increase of body heat. They went to him and escorted their host to his bathroom, fondling muscles while he gave each a hearty slap to their derrières. Opening the glass door to a walk-in shower that could fit seven at each spout, he closed it behind the drellahna and stepped away to lean against a double sink counter. Casnar placed two pre-filled credit chits on the cream marble top and folded his thick forearms across his chest, staring at each consort.

"Bathe each other. Convince me to come in. I will not only buy you your breakfast, your cab fare, but a whole wardrobe each with what’s in these chits."

The drellahna gazed from the credit chits to each other, and the challenge began. While the water ran hot on even hotter performances beyond the fogging glass, Casnar squeezed toothpaste onto a mass energy brush and proceeded to buzz his teeth while enjoying the show.

He was used to privilege. Bored with it. During war, he had idled away time with family on Rakhana. The Reapers had ignored the barren world in favor of Kahje, host planet to hanar and drell. His family had property in Nualavera, site of durril mines and factory compound. It was said that Soterios were born into wealth and prosperity, though his sister, Irikah, had turned her back on the inheritance and luxury in favor of school and career helping hanar with disease control. Casnar had always encouraged her decisions, though deep down he secretly believed she was foolish. When she gave up her career to marry a Thane Krios and have a child, it only reinforced his opinion. Never the less, Casnar supported her choices as much as their parents did.

He emigrated to Kahje to live close to the young family, where he was required to perform work for the hanar government—the Illuminated Primacy. From the year before Kolyat's birth and on, Casnar received formal school and training with the clandestine arm of the Primacy in return for generous donations from his parents. They were more than willing to provide, grateful to have Casnar within closer proximity of their cherished daughter. His assignments made him travel, and as Thane had found, it was in their absence that Irikah came to know her fate at the hands of killers hired by batarians.

There was a heated disagreement between Krios and Soterios over who would take custody of Kolyat after his father disappeared. Since Thane's family as well as Casnar’s were already living on Kahje, it was decided that Kolyat's life should have no further disruption. The child was given to his father's brother and sister-in-law to live under as close a semblance of family structure as Kolyat could have known, and Casnar provided extra care and support. He became an older brother to the young drell, and developed a close relationship with Rojelio and Sapphire Krios. Too close, as eventually Casnar seduced Sapphire while Rojelio went to work for his hanar sponsors.

After war, Thane reached out to whatever family ties he and his son had left. He found the Soterios safe, surprisingly comfortable and defending durril mines in Nualavera. They were caring for refugees displaced from war and the factory compound had been attacked twice by scouting Reapers, but every Soterios and those employed under the family name were trained in combat and battle. The Soterios were not just family, but a colony of several hundred formed in a time before Rakhana's failure to provide for its inhabitants. They had endured through blight, famine, and invasion due to farsighted planning and disciplined organization. Defending against and repelling rival tribes for close to a century and a half had benefits. Thane's brother, Rojelio, was there with Sapphire, still childless. So was Thane's widowed and pregnant sister, Iulia Vitale, with her son and Thane's nephew, young Tiran.

Rojelio was ready to leave Nualavera. Iulia was reluctant, but after some assurance by Rojelio that he and Sapphire would help her with the baby and Tiran, Iulia agreed to move to Lothairaxl where her son and daughter would be closer to their cousin Kolyat. Thane offered to provide for his sister's needs, but Iulia vehemently turned down his support knowing she had to learn how to provide for herself and her offspring. She and Tiran landed in the Colomvan District with Rojelio and Sapphire finding an apartment in a tower block only a five minutes' walk away.

Casnar wanted to reunite with his sister's son, having learned Kolyat had grown into a capable drell and followed somewhat in his father's footsteps. A fact that disturbed Casnar, but his concerns were swept aside when he found Kolyat was well situated in the lap of luxury his father had provided. They picked up where they left off. Casnar enjoyed the fact his nephew was old enough now to cavort about and enjoy women, drinking, dancing, and sometimes a brawl or two. Lothairaxl made its impression on Casnar. The city taught him what else he had been missing. He loved the wealth of culture and its many textures, and so arranged his living accommodations in the lavish district of Ayr Heights. Far as he should be from Rojelio and his tempting wife, close enough to meet his nephew and Tiran in the busy Basham District, financial heart of the city.

An explosive gasp pulled Casnar out of his thoughts and his green eyes fixed to the two entangled drellahna in the shower. Rinsing out his mouth, he strode to the glass door and entered. He had not been so impressed, only hungry again to tend to his hard-working beauties. Pressing lips to each of theirs, he praised them and vigorously took turns with each on a steam bench below a frosted window.

Casnar and his guests vacated his penthouse in the Ritriny Sky Tower, the brilliant yellow drell escorting the smiling drellahna to a luxury skyrunner and sending them on their way before he went to his personal _Aldea SW._ His nephew had a job interview, and he wished to salute Kolyat with a drink and meal before the occasion.

As Casnar made his way through the Lyting District to avoid Ve Boulevard and any further temptations, quiet Tiran Vitale wiped the food off his little sister Vykka's mouth and handed the three-year-old toddler to his aunt. Sapphire dipped and bounced the toddler in her arms, Vykka happily trilling with a mouth full of baby teeth. Tiran's mother had left earlier in the morning with his uncle to be dropped off at work. Uncle Rojelio would pick up Iulia after his shift finished with the district's enforcement. The night before, Tiran had asked Sapphire if she could babysit his little sister. Normally he would be caring for Vykka, but he had made plans to meet up with Kolyat and Casnar to wish blessings on his cousin's pending job interview. There was also a slightly self-indulging motive: the chance to see Hilaeira Tanith. She worked in the mechanics garage across from the breakfast joint where Tiran was to join the others. He could see Hilaeira in her dingy overalls, up to her elbows in grease repairing skyrunners for fancy execs.

Tiran worked at night when his mother was home, providing rush deliveries for the Colomvan division of _Xterrestrial Export and Delivery_ , or _XED_ for short (pronounced ‘Shed’ in the slang of Lothairaxl couriers). His sense of the city's routes and underutilized chunnels made him the fastest courier in the _navarre_. His earnings were padded with bonuses and tips, which he used to supplement his mother's below average income. Her skilled fingers were in high demand, however. In one more year, they hoped to move into a larger apartment with an office. She would then be able to work from home. She had enough of a patronage to transition from her current position at _The Talyessin Threader,_ but the move would require care. The owner would not be pleased to lose his top seamstress in addition to his customers.

Vykka had been born after the move to Lothairaxl from Rakhana. Thane and Kolyat had done what they could to help Tiran's stubborn mother find work with her limited skills. It was from Thane's personal experience struggling to find work when he left the Compact that he could pinpoint Iulia in the direction of tailoring. As a laborer, Thane had learned skilled hands were necessary to sew and repair clothes and uniforms. There were always ripped holes and a seamstress was ever in demand. He told Iulia that if she practiced on whatever she could find, she would become skilled. Her service would be valuable to laborers as well as the affluent. Having gained some experience from living among the Soterios in Nualavera, Iulia started teaching herself. It was soon realized that nimble and dextrous fingers were among the talents in Krios genes.

While his mother honed her skills, Tiran accepted Thane's monetary support behind her back, knowing pride would not feed them. To hide the fact he was accepting aid from his uncle, Tiran set up a private bank account with Thane as a cosigner and only took out what was necessary to feed, clothe, pay rent and utilities. When birthdays came around, he would splurge a little on a gift for his mother or Vykka and say he had paid for it out of his overtime.

Although Thane had rarely seen his nephew, Tiran and Kolyat had grown up together on Kahje. The shy cousin had often visited with his mother and father while Kolyat lived with Uncle Rojelio and Aunt Sapphire. The families would dine together, trying as well as they could to substitute what was missing from Kolyat's life. Tradition gave Kolyat a sense of connection with the rest of his extended family, but it was his close bond with Tiran and Casnar that combined into the emotional support he needed as a young male missing his father's presence.

Tiran lost his own father in the Reaper War. Tor Vitale had been loaned by the Illuminated Primacy to the Alliance's war effort, helping gather raw materials for the construction of the Crucible. Four years later, he still had not returned. Only a letter of consolation and pecuniary offering from the Alliance and the IP had emerged in the wake of his absence.

When the Reapers invaded Kahje, it was Casnar who had shown up on Tiran's doorstep searching for his nephew. He had gone to Rojelio and Sapphire’s and found the home on Quorra Bay desolate, so his next guess was Tiran's home. Before the war, Casnar had returned to Nualavera for a time, helping out his father and mother with review of the estate's status and affairs. He did not know that Kolyat had upped and left to the Citadel without telling anyone. So while Kolyat was fleeing with the rest of the station's inhabitants and finding his way to Lothairaxl, Casnar was saving what family he could locate of Kolyat's. Past grievances were set aside as Rojelio and Casnar helped secure everyone aboard his family's transport, the blessed _Eorl_. Casnar delivered them safely into the care of the Soterios clan, and the Krios family adjusted to life on Rakhana.

Despite Tiran owing his life and that of his mother's (among others) to Casnar, the distant cousins did not develop a close relationship in Nualavera. Soterios was only connected to Vitale by the blood of Kolyat, benefactor to the Soterios’ assets in the event Casnar should cease to exist. Tiran's diminutive personality also put off the bolder, louder drell. Casnar all but ignored the young Vitale male, who was unable to compete for tribe membership and therefore existed only as a temporary ward living off the generosity of the Soterios. When the cousins happily reunited in Lothairaxl, that was the only time Casnar took notice of Tiran. Their relationship was polite, wholehearted even, but Casnar rarely saw Tiran outside of socializing with his favorite nephew Kolyat.

The cousins' bond was soon as strong as Kolyat's with his uncle. Tiran and Kolyat tacitly shared in the personal loss of a parent from each of their lives. The shy, quiet Tiran grew more outgoing and confident through increased interactions with his cousin Kolyat and uncle Casnar. Kolyat was a full-grown drell and had learned to speak with a strong voice. He taught his cousin how to wield a weapon with lethal intent since Tiran was the only male in his home, sole protector of his mother and little sister next to Rojelio and Thane. Tiran looked up to Kolyat, who admired Casnar, who doted on his nephew, who felt especially protective of Tiran, and they were all family.


	4. Chapter 4

_"Ms. Krios, I have good news. Your suspicions were right. I've got the lab results here and I can definitely say you're pregnant. I think congratulations are in order. . . again."_

* * *

"Yeah, Dad, I'm on my way to meet up with Uncle Casnar and Tiran. Then I've got my interview at Nolyn Enterprises at 11:30. I'll get there early. Don't worry."

Thane smiled and leaned back against his seat, listening to his son's voice over the audio system. The sound of his voice, grown into a man's, was a welcome comfort. It still saddened him. So much time had gone by in the years since he had left Kolyat behind, only to reconnect as he was about to embark on a suicide mission.

"This is a special opportunity, Kolyat. I cannot express that enough. Please do not be late or I will never hear the end of it."

Racing along Bilavet Boulevard and turning with traffic onto Shey Street, Kolyat blinked behind the reflective visor of his helmet. His grip tightened to speed up the Coalan bilinear, purring along between his legs as he rode it to Kiara's Food Fest in the Basham District.

"Never hear the end of it? What, do you sleep with the chief officer of Nolyn, Dad? Because that's what it sounds like."

Thane remained silent though his smile widened, the effect of suppressing the chuckle from what his son's observation had hit the nail on. He looked at the photo on his dashboard, a candid pose of himself and Braith tangled together and smiling at the camera. Her grey eyes, pale skin, and black hair refreshed him.

"Fantastic," Kolyat's sarcasm carried over the speakers, interpreting his father's silence for confirmation of his suspicion, "no wonder the interview was expedited."

"Be there on time and do your best, Kolyat. I will be in touch after the interview. Drive safely. And Kolyat?"

"Yeah, Dad?"

Thane hesitated, the words strange on his lips. It was his son, but he could not say it without awkwardness.

As Kolyat rounded the next corner onto Terika Street, he raised his head from the shielding of the Coalan to check if Hilaeira was out in front of Rajmund’s Storage and Repair Shop. She was.

"Hey, Dad, I gotta go. I'll call you after the interview, all right?"

The line cut off and Thane was left to the silence of his thoughts. He shook his head at his reflection in the window out onto black space, then looked through the upper glass to observe the Charon Mass Relay in its foreboding existence over his vessel.

Kolyat wondered what Hilaeira would say when she saw him pull up on the Coalan, recently repaired and rumbling without the chokes and pops that had been vexing him for a week. She would see he had it repaired at 2121. She would be offended. He had only used 2121 because they had done a decent job in the past, plus they worked right under his penthouse. Hilaeira would rip about trusting his bilinear to hands other than her own. She would also claim his not supporting a friend trying to make a buck. It was not as though she lacked for work. Rajmund’s had high rates, so money was not a problem for her. He figured if she really started busting his chops, he could shut her up by holding out the _Lusty Surveyor_ in his side compartment. He wondered what color her tebri would change to when faced with the article.

Over in what once was Alliance space (and still could be considered if one disregarded the fact there was nothing left of Arcturus Station and other forms that could indicate Alliance government), Thane reflected on his son's flippancy. Did he deserve it? What investment had he put into his son after Irikah died? The death of her killers. A trust in his name. Seeing Kolyat into the care of his brother and sister-in-law. The least he had done after ten years of missing had been to give Kolyat access to his accounts and letting him live in his penthouse in Lothairaxl. There was also finding the rest of their family and convincing them to move closer together in a place that was as foreign to them as it was unpleasant.

Lothairaxl had been the safest choice on a planet between the Terminus, Alliance, and Council territories. There was no Hegemony to worry over, now that the remaining batarians were on the endangered list. The rachni were silent as ever, and the yahg had never been able to organize. So it was only the usual troublemakers and leaders, all familiar in how to handle each other and keep the peace.

Thane knew he was pushing the line by pressing his estranged son to be on time for the appointment. Past neglect, a suicide mission, war, and now all the sudden attention would have left even himself wondering who he was to think he could start making demands and holding another to a schedule. Thane would have to bear with it. It was only the beginning, and he wanted a relationship with Kolyat. Fingering the grooves between his keyboard and watching the activities on the exterior of the broken station above him, Thane considered if he should push his son more. Or if the boy—correction, young man—could self-initiate and take on new challenges without his help. Kolyat had still not opened up about his work for Panos, and Thane doubted he ever would. Unless some personal, emotional father-son talk would manifest from it. Hoping for that would be akin to waiting for stars to collide. It would not happen in a day.

No, he would have to wait. Waiting was not hard for him, though at times with a loved one he did find himself anticipating more than he would have liked. Every interaction would weigh in both their minds, and Kolyat could just as easily flick his considerations off his shoulder as Thane usually did when it came to something he wished not to deal with. Like father, like son. Apart for so long yet so similar. Thane wondered if maybe he would have been the same with his own father, once in a story far away. Reule Krios had not followed the path of the Compact, but had volunteered Thane so the family could move to Kahje and leave Rakhana behind. Thane had his own misgivings about his father's decision, but it was his fate to be the offered lamb. He smiled at Braith’s use of the phrase, her colloquialisms adopted into his language. There were other phrases she taught him, but they were best left to the quiet areas of his mind.

Above on the Charon Relay, what appeared to be a balcony and was only an open ledge had the bizarre four legged figure of a big Keeper moving along it. The Keeper would pause now and then, to do what Thane could only guess. He was amazed it was out on the ledge without any shielding, exposed to the cold vacuum of space.

"That doesn't make sense," he said to himself, leaning forward to run another scan of the relay.

The Keeper had recently appeared, unprotected. It should not be walking so heavily on the outer rampart of the space station, but having trouble clinging to the surface. The movement was deliberate, unencumbered by the nuisance of zero gravity. Thane punched in another scan and dropped out the flare. He watched its light illuminate the base of the window, then rise with a little blue jet. It steered towards the relay, picking up speed. Were it not for the vacuum of space, he would swear he could hear the jet hissing as if it were back inside its test containment at Nolyn Labs. For now, all he saw was the silent catalysis of the engine as it blazed brighter and rushed to its destination.

Twenty meters out, something unexpected happened. The relay's defense system activated two cannons and fired intersecting shots at the flare. Thane glimpsed the purple prism effect of a barrier irritated by the passage of the rays and then the following reflection of the flare's destruction. He flexed his jaw, watching the barrier field ripple away into invisibility. The Keeper had stopped to watch the event below the ledge, its bulbous eyes unblinking as if it were lifeless yet able to still think. Thane's scalp tightened with the eerie sense that the relay was operational, but this time around no one would have access to the prothean technology. Or at least not anyone he could think of. The Keeper moved on and turned towards a gate on the ledge, legs carrying one staggered step at a time into the relay's walls.

"So the defenses are operational, and progressed at that." The voice in the cockpit came from the vessel two kilometers away.

"I think the upside is that salvagers will have a much harder time stealing parts of the tech. Braith will be pleased to know we still needn't become involved, but I don't feel it is a reason to stop monitoring."

The voice chalked in with a squawk. "You should head back, Thane. Catch some rest and report into her majesty."

With a forceful huff from levity, "Thank you, Feron. I'll send my findings to you. That engagement was within twenty-one meters of the relay. Be mindful you send out a test every so often, and don't fall asleep."

"You practicing your fatherly skills on me, Thane?" Feron's voice joked over the speakers.

A distant light began to grow as it drew closer, then shifted upwards to position itself slightly farther out from his position by the Charon mammoth. Thane thought to wave. Instead, he closed his fingers around the steering handles and pivoted the fast scout ship, an AM1 (Agile Method First Class), towards home. Passing under the sleek triangular vessel above his own, Thane signaled goodbye with a prompt to Feron's address and activated the warp. The AM1's cockpit window filled with stretched linear highlights of stars and faded into a Gaussian blur of the passing galaxy. Pushing up out of his seat, Thane walked to the rear of the vessel and lay down on a bunk, pulling out a necklace from the ceiling straps holding his personal affects. He turned the links over in his green fingers, studying it and wondering if she will like the gift. Grunt had mentioned the metal was formed by combining thresher acid with several alkali materials, and if Braith did not freak out over that fact then she would most likely wear it. There were several stainings on the mirrorlike surface, but that was part of the design. Overall he admired it, and could see the gems above the plate links perfectly complementing her black hair. He wondered if she would let him make love to her with it on, but it was doubtful. Braith had never slept with a drell before, and though they shared a bed, was not ready to cross into that deed with him.


	5. Chapter 5

_"If you destroy us, all products that are connected to us will also be destroyed. That will include your beloved AI. Then for a time you will have peace, but it will not be permanent. No, we are not saying we can predict the future. You simply cannot live without us."_

* * *

Lothairaxl Port Security Barend was loaded with _navarre_ and the skeleton fleets of foreign governments, gathered together in the one secure depot of flight vessels fully functional for ships. As a hub of deliveries, transport, and distribution from an otherwise thankless city, there was no other offering as streamlined nor as safe. Even the leftovers of the human Parliament came through Lothairaxl to find their counterparts and fellow ambassadors tweaking out deals and agreements with the city. The new unity was lawless, and the _navarre_ were making the rules along with Lothairaxl’s interim leaders.

Easing down the engines, Thane guided the AM1 into a central bay as the computer was contacted by the authorizing managers in the port. It should be clear where his ship belonged, but the port security was always testing for ignorant employees and looking for a way to exploit as many pilots and ships as possible.

"Vessel 142, which company are you with?" It was a male voice on the line.

"Port Mother, permission to dock with Bay 5552. Vessel 142, Nolyn Enterprises."

There was a brief silence, followed by the static scuffle of hands over the radio. "Vessel 142, our apologies. Go ahead and dock in Bay 5552. Welcome back to Lothairaxl."

Thane's mouth tightened in a sardonic smile as he shut off the speakers and lowered the AM1 into its pier of locks and clamps. Nolyn. The only reason he did not have to report into the city's governing body of vessels for supply and distribution. The Sierra District would love to see the Nolyn _navarre_ under its control. It would only mean thirteen hundred more ships to add to its collection of local _navarre_ too poor to pay the fees to independently operate.

Early on, before the _navarre_ organized, deliveries and transport were managed by good will providers. Then the accidents and thefts started. Afterwards, Lothairaxl cracked down on the unlawfulness and required each shipper to register with the local offices. One by one, the smaller companies were swept into a bag and utilized as Lothairaxl saw fit, should they wish to continue operation. Were it not for Braith's strong network of space worthy vessels and her connections, Lothairaxl would have seen a monopoly over the entire system. No one could simply come and go on a Lothairaxl owned vessel. It was unfair, unrivaled competition with the tight regulations and strangling fees associated with independence of the city government service requirements.

A few shipping companies had sought to buy their way into Nolyn Enterprises and Braith had been unusually selective. Thane trusted her choices. She was cautious about potential benefits and troublemakers. There were companies out there with agents intent on stealing pilots as well as business. Former Spectre status and amicability with the living galactic leaders also gave Braith more leverage when handling Lothairaxl reps or the agents of competitive shippers. He was her pirate mercenary, Thane mused.

She was also fairly involved in researching the mass relays and keeping an eye out for possible leftover relics of war, the survivors of the code that destroyed the Reapers, Geth, and regrettably, other artificial life. There had been no sightings of synthetics for four years, though mechs and androids were back in production. Material mining was far more dangerous now without the labor and travel power necessary, much even squandered by the governments of various planets seeking to survive and control trade for their favor. He could see Braith tired and laying by the fireplace in his suite, favoring Scotch with a rock or two. The corner of his mouth tugged up in a grin. His suite, and the savior of the galaxy reclining on his couch.

Stepping into the bay from the exposed cockpit of his scouter, Thane shouldered his satchel of clothes and comforts. He moved out from under the wing of the ship and towards the blinding lights of the day outside. He barely squinted as the sun reflected off his photochromic lenses, adjusting to de-intensify the sunlight. Out beyond the open hangar doors, he could see the first signs of a mob forming in front of the port offices. Thane turned left to follow the building away from the protestors, gazing over his shoulder at the aliens raising signs and fists towards the uniformed officers inside the windows. Angry men and women who had lost their ships to Lothairaxl impounds, he determined, unable to make a living unless they flew for the city and only for the city.

He took the omnichunnel to the Satin District, planning to depart two stops away from the 2121 Hotel. Several commuters gave him glances, eyeing the sleek muscles of his arms as he held to the rigging above and staggered his legs. The cart he was in swayed and squeaked against the rail it guided itself upon, moving from Central Lothairaxl to his stop in a matter of minutes. Thane held his gaze down, his peripheral vision making note of everything.

Running up the staircase of his tower block on Atmore Street to the fiftieth level, Thane reveled in the steady pump and burn of his muscles as he climbed all the flights and swung open the door to his hall. He emerged halfway down from the vert lift, and three doors away from their apartment. Pulling out his fob, he deactivated the locks and slipped quietly inside. The place was well-furnished, an opera playing on the internal broadcaster. Thane traveled through their abode, all six rooms in all.

He found the bed made, some trinkets laid out on the stand beside the head pillows. Sweeping his hand over the covers, her side of the bed, Thane reached down and picked up a ring. It had a feline eye of amber and hematite, the setting itself gold. It was heavy. A man's. Thane had never seen it before now. Braith would not have expected him home until later that night. She probably would be displeased that he had laid eyes on it.

Thane turned the ring over in his fingers, something interrupting the glistening reflection on the inner curve beneath the stone. He held it close to his face, translating the inscription of human characters.

_To my husband, in holy matrimony. May loving arms hold you, wherever you might wander._

Tightening his fist over the ring, Thane held it to his lips. His eyelids lowered, chest filling with air.

"Computer, turn off the music."

The opera ended, its soprano piece suddenly cut off. He returned the ring to the stand, exactly as he had found it. With another deep breath, he turned towards the window. Transparent white curtains hung in loose folds across the glass. He parted them, gazing across the skyway to the penthouse atop the 2121 Hotel.

Leave it to him to set up sites in view of each other. The apartment was meant to keep an eye on the penthouse in the event it were compromised, and Thane could observe whoever it was hunting him. That was a lifetime ago, when Thane was an assassin performing at the instruction of the hanar. Then a freelancer. Finally, for himself. Now the penthouse was his son's temporary home until he could find somewhere else and support himself with work. Thane believed Kolyat would want to move off the trust, and leave from his father's care. It was why he left Rojelio and Sapphire. What had driven him to the Citadel, to the Ohnicio Depository to open the case and take out Thane's War Master. The pistol was his heirloom to Kolyat, the gun he retired when he left the Compact to be with Irikah. It was a reliable piece, one of the finest manufactured of its time and painstakingly modified by Thane to serve as an extension of his arm. Now it waited in his closet, unused and forgotten.

He wondered if Kolyat looked out his windows across the street and considered whether he lived there, watching over him. Kolyat had never been invited to the apartment, Thane only ever visiting the penthouse or meeting with his son elsewhere.

The curtains fell together as his satchel rang. Crossing into the living room, he opened the zipper and withdrew his omnitool. His finger depressed the receiver.

"Checking up on you."

The familiar voice made his pulse flutter. "Siha." A grin spread across his face, unable to help himself.

"I tried your ship, but got sent to messages. Are you home?"

"Yes. I've arrived early."

"Good," she said, "then you can tell me how surveillance went. Anything new out there?"

Sitting down on the couch, he reclined and activated the monitor to pass the call into video and find some screen time with his angel. The monitor blinked, waiting for Braith to accept the request to live feed as Thane pulled off his tank and leaned forward over his knees. Her face displayed, the sight of her animated on screen practically sending the corners of his mouth to his frill. She gave him a tight lipped smile and once over with her cool grey eyes. It had been a week and she looked as professional as ever with her black locks cut to below her chin, a wave of black over her fair brow.

"Why hello. Couldn't wait to see me?"

"I thought you would like a visual. It has been a few days."

"Six days, five nights, to be exact." She wrinkled her nose.

"So you have been keeping track."

She pulled the plump lower right corner of her lip between her teeth, letting a few seconds pass of unspoken tension.

"I diverted to Tuchanka before making my way to Charon. Grunt sends his greetings."

"Oh? Why would you go by there? It's a little out of the way."

"A personal matter," he dismissed, "I'll share it with you later. The Charon Relay is operating, defensively that is. I tested a flare that was repulsed by cannons from the station itself. Exact. The AM1 will have it recorded and I have sent a copy to you and the others."

"I saw the file come through. Haven't had a chance to look yet."

"When you do, pay attention to the barrier that appears from the repercussion."

Her eyes widened. "The barriers are activated?"

"I believe so. There was a Keeper traveling along the exterior bulkheads. Gravity mechanisms seem also to have been repaired."

"That's. . . intriguing. I'll take a look after the call. Did you record the Keeper?"

"Of course. The Keepers on Charon are significantly different from the domestic version we saw on the Citadel."

"I've been following the reports. They're all a little bit different on each relay. I wonder if the barriers are a response to violators attempting to gain access to the stations. By the sound of things, Charon doesn't seem to be letting anything come in for contact. Was Feron your relief? Did you warn him?"

"Feron was there, and yes. It was a twenty meter trigger. Feron took position well outside of that."

"Good boy," she murmured to herself. She was no longer looking at him, focus lost in thought as she bit her thumb. "How come we never knew about cannons?"

"The relays all hold many secrets as we well know from the Citadel's example. At least they'll be harder to pilfer and damage now."

"Cannons are a decent discouragement. I just. . . I don't understand what's controlling the Keepers. They can't be synthetic or Reaper tech because they would have been destroyed. We need to collect one."

"Braith."

She focused on him through the screen. Thane shook his head and sighed. "The Keepers alone without the barriers and relay's defense cannons could decimate a squad of armed salvage mercs. I think it would be wise to leave the creatures be."

"Did you witness any further attempts?"

"One. It did not go well."

"They'll persist."

"And they will continue to fail."

Her face moved closer, filling in the screen. "Maybe we should help them. Do you ever wonder, Thane, that the Keepers could be upgrading? Cannons? Barriers? The Mars records had no mention of the relays protecting themselves, just that they were transit points and fully available to all. What if the rebuilding leads to something newer? Stronger?"

"Better even? Such as you?"

Her lips parted, hesitating from what she was about to say. The intensified expression on Braith softened. "You didn't know me before my reconstruction, Thane."

"Indeed," he thought of the ring in the bedroom, "I would like to, but you refuse to discuss your past with me. Other than what's officially documented, that is."

He grinned and stretched against the couch, trying to tease her. Braith lifted her chin in stubborn refusal of what his body language conveyed.

"The hope," she resumed, "was that the Keepers, if left alone, would rebuild the relays to fully operational. Not to turn them into fortresses against future use. Also, if the Keepers are upgrading the relays, what's not to tell us that the relay map won't also be updated? We'll need to send in crews to test the jumps and remap everything. More importantly, I want to know if the Reapers are actually gone, or if I've just knocked out someone's program and the architect is coming to fix things."

"You doubt the Reapers are annihilated?"

"I doubt we've seen the last of them."

"But it's been four years, Braith."

"What's activated the Keepers, Thane? Why have we never seen the big ones before? Something's changing."

He rolled his eyes, giving up the effort to change topics. "Everything's changed. You changed it when you destroyed the Reaper AI."

Sitting forward, Thane clasped his hands between his knees. There was a knot in his stomach. He did not want to think of more Reapers. One challenge after the next, the galaxy was trying to function again. Without the help of the relays. If the Keepers could be left to do their jobs, perhaps in two years' time the travel network would be operational. The barriers were only meant to belabor the scavengers trying to steal the technology and hinder the reconstruction.

"Please, siha, let it alone. When the relays are completed, then the Galactic Union can formulate a means of testing them. You've done your part. It's time to move on."

"There's no telling what will happen when those relays reopen, if they ever do, Thane."

She looked down and away from the camera. He could tell she was struggling. Thane stood up and moved closer to the lens on the monitor.

"Siha, you're a hero. To everyone. To me. The time for war is over."

"Now is the perfect time to prepare. Everyone believes in the Reapers, Thane. It's fresh in their minds and people still listen to me. We need to be proactive and prepare for the future."

"Siha," he repeated himself, "the war is over."

Her jaw stiffened. It was obvious she did not believe it was. Thane's brow scale raised as he considered the possibility she knew something she had not yet shared with anyone. His siha was keeping secrets.

"Is there something you wish to tell me?"

"Yeah, I need to go. Your _son_ is going to be outside my office soon, and I want to take a look at those feeds you sent us. I'll see you later, babe."

She was being curt with him. Thane sighed and held up his hand, causing her to pause before she shut him off.

"Kolyat has not seen you for some time. He will be expecting something more along the lines of his former work. I understand you will be offering him something. . . different from what he expects. I remind you not to be offended by his initial reaction. As we know from the past, it takes him some time to process. . . surprises." He looked up at her and offered a conciliatory grin. "You will also recall he was intending to sleep with you and Liara when first you three met."

"Don't worry, Thane. I'll be objective."

She winked before the monitor blanked to black. He was going to say that he would swing by the office, that he had missed her and wanted time alone with her. Now he would have to show up unwanted, and hopefully he could take his own advice and apply it to himself.

At Nolyn Enterprises, Braith Shepard rocked back and forth in her chair. Staring over her knuckles at the empty screen before her, she wondered if Thane had found her father's ring that she had left out. He would probably be curious, if not downright alarmed. She smirked to herself, thinking of the conversation later. Part of her wanted to see how jealous she could make him, just to get him back for their recent disagreement over the comm.

Over. The war was not over. They had to be certain before anything could be declared over, and it was unlike a summit could be called with a dead Reaper AI. If it were, in fact, dead. But an AI had to be built by someone, and it was not possible for the created to destroy the creator. The Geth had not killed the quarians. The Reapers had not killed their leviathans, and Braith believed their legendary explanation to be square bullshit. Telepathic or not, the leviathans were blowhards. An aquatic race building artificial intelligence? The most they could do was give Braith a nosebleed, never mind build technology underwater. Then there was EDI. EDI had not destroyed the Illusive Man, only helped to catch him. That was within the laws of the constructed mind.

"EDI, contact Hackett and Anderson. Forward any recent reports transmitted by our scouts."

"Neither are available, ma'am."

An android walked into view from the adjoining office, nicknamed EDI in honor of the Normandy's AI which had become a casualty in the victory over the Reapers. Braith had enlisted the help of several artificial intelligence firms to recreate what they could of EDI's programming. At best, they had come up with an android that functioned well enough, but was a far cry from the intelligence and character that had befriended Braith and her crew.

"Anderson is currently on Earth assisting with several rehabilitation projects in London. Hackett is in former Council Space, meeting with the Union Visionaries. Neither are available, but I have forwarded on the data with your request to discuss findings."

"Thank you, EDI. I want to talk to Liara T'soni next, and please send a priority update to Feron Saeah. Let him know I don't want him moving on any Keepers until we have a better idea about the Charon upgrades. Tell him he can test, but he is not to endanger himself. Once that's done, I need a status report on all craft for Nolyn Enterprises. And let me know when Kolyat Krios arrives."

"As you wish, ma'am."


	6. Chapter 6

_"He's one of the finest agents they've seen. Too bad he's a spoiled playboy. Be hard to keep him under control if anything ever happened to his sister."_

* * *

Loyce Meeda was on her way home from work when a fine black sky runner slowed down beside her on the sidewalk, two blocks from the restaurant she overnighted at for tips and minimum wage. The window dropped, and it surprised her to see a handsome yellow drell with green eyes and violet tebri admiring her from the luxurious trim of the interior. To Casnar, she reminded him of the drell buranna's from his home on Rakhana. Dressed in black pants and a white top, she was tall and patterned pink and green with a tinge of blue on her frill. The brighter the drell, the more potent the venom and Casnar was enchanted.

"You. . . are. . . breathtaking," he said, resting his arm on the door and putting on a most charismatic smile.

Unable to ignore a compliment, particularly by one so attractive, Loyce welcomed his interest with a pleased expression of her own.

"Do you drive up to every _drellana_ you see and roll down the window to flirt? Or is this my lucky day."

"I have an appreciation for all things beautiful. Does it hurt my chances if I confess I only flirt with the very beautiful ones?"

The runner hovered to a stop on the uniway, warming the air against Loyce’s legs. Casnar put both arms on the door frame and leaned forward, letting his eyes run over her figure. She stopped, too, humoring him.

"I work in service, cutie. I'm used to the attention. I'll warn you now, you're wasting your time."

"Oh, I disagree," he said. "You work in service? Whereabouts?"

"Drazan, luxury spirits, down on Bordon. You should swing by if you like _fopis_. Chef makes a hot one that will make your eyes run."

 _Fopis_ was an ethnic dish among older generations of drell, consisting of a vegetable with hot tubers and spices served with minced meat stuffed inside. Loyce watched as the bright yellow male opened his door and rose out of the interior to lean on the frame in the middle of the sky runner. He wore a metallic sateen suit with pins on his collar, cuffs loosely wrinkled against his wrists and big hands slid into his trouser pockets. Casnar was taller than her by a few inches.

"Waitressing?" When she nodded, Casnar took a daring step towards her and bent his brow. "Looking to earn a little extra money?" He inclined his head towards the car. Before she could answer, he said, “Money and a ride, but you have to sit in my lap for the next block or two in the back seat while I put it on auto and see you come. You up for it? I guarantee I can make you a whore in no time flat, you’ll be loving it so much. How about two thousand credits? You look a little surprised. Maybe I make it three for that sweet honey between your thighs, love. What do you say?” He winked and took her arm.

Her response was to slap him hard against his _tebri_ and walk away. Casnar, incensed, strode after the drell and pinched her arm with the grip he had on her. She shouted, slapping him with her purse as he began to pull her against him and force himself on her mouth. Casnar shoved her hands down.

Loyce beat at him, fighting his lift as he carried her back to the sky runner and opened the door, tossing her lightly inside. He climbed into the back, closing the door behind him, and in seconds, the sky runner was up and hovering away down the street.

A batarian on the corner clicked his recorder off, making note of the license plate and the style and model. He jogged around the front of the store he’d been casing and ran into an alley, meeting with the members of his gang to go over the recording as the sky runner sped away.


	7. Chapter 7

Kolyat looked across the street with Tiran, admiring Hilaeira who had just passed a wink to the pair through the window. Tiran was barely able to order his breakfast, what with her traipsing around in the cute overalls with the grease stains he fantasized about at night when he had a break between deliveries. Kolyat ignored the next round of sky runners that landed, the owners jostling to be first to talk to the female mechanic with the bright smile and cut sleeves. He ordered his selection, checking the time and wondering when his uncle would show.

"I really hope Casnar hasn't forgotten about breakfast. Shouldn't be taking him so long to get here."

Tiran answered out of the side of his mouth, gray eyes riveted to the girl of his dreams across the street. "Don't worry, cousin, he'll make it around eventually."

"Not before I have my interview, if he keeps at this rate. Amonkira, I'm nervous."

The opposite drell shook his stare away from the repair shop and fluttered his four eyelids at Kolyat. "You shouldn't be. It's just a courier job."

A crossness befell him. "Courier? What makes you assume that? My dad's probably told them my past work was way above that pay grade and level of labor." He winced when he realized who he was talking to.

Tiran narrowed his eyes at his cousin. "Couriering is a lot of work. I hope to be able to advance myself one day, but I wouldn't be expecting information broker status or infiltration, whatever it is you had yourself into back before time. Just hope they don't hold the lack of current experience against you."

Feeling the need to stroke his own ego, Kolyat sat taller and puffed his _tebri_ with indignity. "I'm still on top of my game. I've been training and keeping in shape."

"Yeah, but when was the last time you had practical experience? Believe me, you'll get a job. What with your father's rep and pull, but don't have your hopes too high. Nolyn Enterprises is purely deliveries and shipping, and they happen to have a fleet armed to the teeth with guns. I know, because my company competes with them."

"You're jealous," Kolyat accused him, thrusting his arms under his chest and chucking his chin out. "Small time courier against Nolyn Enterprises? Hardly competition for intercluster shipping and. . . Nolyn does more than that. There's bound to be information trading. Maybe I can get a role doing that."

Tiran raised his brow scales at his cousin's optimism. "I doubt it, Kol. Those are high level jobs. You're going to be plugged in the bottom rung. Your father had to work low labor when he quit the Compact, remember? Just because he was a big time enforcer didn't guarantee him a cushy white collar job. He had to start at the bottom. Casnar told you all about it."

"Tiran, you're a sack." He shook his head, scowling at his cousin. They were close, regardless of their current disagreement. Kolyat would not suffer someone being so raw with him about his reality if he were not close with him. To ruffle his cousin, however, Kolyat reached into his coat pocket and tossed out the _Lusty Surveyor_ copy he had brought to torment him. "Turn to the back page. You seen this yet?"

Tiran wrinkled his scales up in displeasure at the sight of the periodical. He pinched the cover and flipped it open, as if he could catch a sexually transmitted virus simply through contact. " _Why_ on Kahje did you bring this with you?"

"Because when I saw what was in the back, I thought of you," Kolyat sweetly said.

Tiran glanced at Kolyat, unsure if he should smack him or run the other way. "You're distur—"

His voice cut off as he saw the spread of Hilaeira perched against a sweet sky runner and false grease stains made up on her cheeks and brow scales. His heart quickly thudded at the provocative pose she was scanned in, perhaps at some off site garage. Eyes jumped to the interview piece, trying his best to avoid the exquisite reveal of brown and green scales peeking out from under the end of her yellow scale trail at her exposed midriff.

"Sweet Arashu," he whispered. Tiran would be in a sweat if he had the glands. "'Likes movies, action with a little drama and melted ice cream under hot fudge'?"

"Hot fudge." Kolyat leaned over the table and playfully shoved his cousin's shoulder. "Look at you. You can keep the copy. I don't want it after you've drooled all over it."

Tiran checked and grimaced when he realized Kolyat had him. He had not drooled, but he was hardly aware of much besides Hilaeira's back page monopoly of the pornographic smutter. He looked up as the door opened and nearly died when the drellana on the magazine walked in for break. Swiping the magazine off the table, he held it tight to his ribs as he leaned back to grin at the pretty drell.

"Hilaeira!" He exclaimed. "You. . . You look great. New overalls?"

She squinted a curious gaze at him with her violet eyes and laughed at his extraordinary tension, glancing at Kolyat with a resplendent smile. "Has he had too much coffee already?"

Kolyat shrugged his heavy shoulders and settled back, crossing his ankle over his knee and propping his cheek on an index finger and thumb. "Just being Tiran, I think. You read any good magazines lately, Hilaeira?"

He let his gaze linger on her figure as she placed an order with the asari barista and then swung around, setting her rear on a stool. Hilaeira was his height, decked in bluish overalls with reinforced patches on the rear and knees. She had long legs, which Tiran and Kolyat both knew were athletic and toned. The magazine had helped them realize what else she possessed higher up, but as was customary among drell women, were not breasts. Only a more patterned set of scales spread below a _tebri_ that was peculiarly orange. Her bone structure was elegant and feminine, making her more attractive than the typical drell women who had pronounced cheekbones and chins. Her scent was also attractive, strongly venomous, possibly the highlight for Kolyat who was interested in the more exotic of what the female sex had to offer. Whatever species.

Tiran tried to steady his breathing when Hilaeira fixed her gaze on him and deviously grinned. "You keep staring at me like that, Tear, I'm going to have to blindfold you. I take it you've seen my spread?"

"Spread?"

She tipped her chin at the magazine between his elbow and coat, the blue asari commando snarling out at everyone. Kolyat watched Tiran's _tebri_ flush distinctly mauve from pink and he pushed the _Lusty Surveyor_ across the table.

"It's his copy." Tiran furiously glowered at Kolyat.

Hilaeira laughed, a light sparkle of noise that attracted other ears in the restaurant. Kolyat smoothly pushed the magazine back towards Tiran, but Hilaeira was off the stool and had crossed to sit next to Kolyat's flabbergasted cousin. She slid him as far back as she could and picked up the magazine, flipping the pages under Tiran's nose.

"Not a bad job. They were actually more tasteful than I expected," she said, "want it?"

She held it out to Tiran who shook his head, then foolishly nodded. Laughter jingled out again and Hilaeira leveled her gaze with Kolyat across from them.

"Hey, Kol. How're you and your dad doing?"

Now it was his turn to look suspicious. "Fine, I guess. He's set me up with an interview at Nolyn. Casnar is supposed to join us to do the _hoo rah_ thing, but he's late."

"Too bad," she pouted, "if you see your dad, tell him I'm available."

She clicked her tongue at Kolyat's displeased expression and hopped up to collect her beverage from the counter.

"You know, Tiran's available too," he suggested, "even brought you flowers. What do you think of that?"

"Sorry, Tiran," she frowned at the helpless drell, "I don't date in my income class."

Kolyat hissed, then glared at the chafing laughter coming from another restaurant patron. He looked apologetically at Tiran, his cousin suddenly miserable in the table corner.

"I didn't bring any flowers," Tiran dejectedly protested.

Hilaeira slid back into the bench next to Tiran and rubbed the crest of his head in consolation. He did not protest about her touch. Kolyat chuckled, his chest filling and thrumming as he watched the pair across from him. Then the door opened and spice filled the air. His onyx gaze was drawn instantly to the dark green scales and luminous eyes bobbing along the top of the high bench back.

It was her, the delivery kid from the 2121. She practically pirouetted through the crowd of customers waiting in line. The girl bypassed everyone with a handful of smaller packages that she offered to the manager, a salarian with reddish skin. Kolyat had to talk to her. He stood up and pushed through the line, accepting the dark, truculent looks of aliens in need of morning Joe. "Hey."

The girl ignored him, focused on the salarian signing her datapad. Small green hands latched onto the offered tablet and tucked it tight to her waist as she turned and slipped away towards the door. Kolyat turned as well, pushing and prodding people aside to follow after her. Her green neck and black stubs below the hat she wore disappeared into the crowd.

From the table, Tiran had watched everything. He waved to Kolyat, standing lost in the middle of the line with irritated patrons squeezing around his tall bulk. Kolyat shook his head and sighed, walking over and sitting down.

"I saw that girl at the hotel this morning. I feel like I've seen her before. . . Before today, I mean."

Tiran was able to relinquish a throaty chuckle, Hilaeira sitting next to him sipping from her cup.

"That's Tisiphone. She's a courier for XED. Works the day shifts. She's a little young for you, coz."

Kolyat snapped him up with a glare. "Obviously. I'm not interested in her like you're implying. Just. . . Like I said, feel like I know her from somewhere. Always the same scent."

Tiran sat forward, glancing at Hilaeira looking back at him. "What? You recognize her scent? That's a little weird."

"Yeah, I know," he muttered, "that's why I want to talk to her. You say she works with you?"

"We don't work together, but she's at the same delivery company. Recent addition, too. Doesn't talk much, and there's a rumor she's there on favor. Does pretty well. First few weeks and she set a record with vendor deliveries in the Satin District. Stands out because she's young for the job."

"I don't understand why I would think I know her and have no recollection of her."

"Yeah, that's pretty bizarre, memory wise and all," Hilaeira chimed in.

"Want me to see if I can learn some more about the kid? Maybe you ran into her at the last job you had, or in the refugee camps."

Kolyat considered his time waiting for entrance to Lothairaxl, being screened before the city gave him permission to enter. He could not place the girl's face anywhere during that chaos. In whatever case, it was not so much her face that struck him so powerfully as it was her scent. It reminded him of his mother. He shook his head clear of the thoughts.

"Yeah, if it's not going to get you in trouble. Let me know what you find out."

"You two are such creeps," Hilaeira opined, standing up, "looking up info on a young kid. So what if she smells funny? You'll just freak her out. Let her do her job."

"You jealous, Hilaeira?" Kolyat teased.

She rolled her eyes and grabbed the _Lusty Surveyor_ out of Tiran's lap. Just as she turned to go, a bold yellow drell with a nice suit and a swagger came through the crowd and deftly removed the magazine from Hilaeira's grip.

"Hello again! What's this? The morning news?" Casnar's green eyes went round at the asari posing on the cover. His face pointed at Hilaeira with a perplexed furrow to his brow.

"Casnar, you made it," Kolyat greeted from the bench, "Hilaeira made the back page."

"The back page," he scoffed, appraising her with a studious stare. He flipped the covers open and located her article. " _Hot Pros Corner_. My." The look on his face made Hilaeira's tebri flush a different color as Tiran's had. "Not the front page, dear?" Casnar grinned a radiant smile that made Kolyat roll his eyes. "I should have a talk with the editor."

"It's an interview piece marking female professionals in predominantly male careers," she explained, snatching at the magazine.

Casnar, bigger than her, held the magazine behind her back and wrist tossed it to Tiran. He used the opportunity to wrap his long arm around Hilaeira and guide her back to the bench.

"Please, you must join us for breakfast."

"Hilaeira has to get back to work, Uncle Casnar. Let her go," Kolyat admonished the incorrigible drell.

Lifting his arms up, Casnar let Hilaeira dodge away giggling at his charm. She fled through the restaurant door before he could grab at her again. Adjusting his suit, he sat down next to Kolyat, rubbing elbows and good-naturedly roughing up his nephew.

"You'll have to invite that one out when we celebrate your new job, son. Be good entertainment to see what she does with a few shots in her."

Tiran could have had smoke coming out of his ears. Kolyat chuckled and pushed the attacking hands away, glancing up as the server arrived with his plate.

"My interview's in an hour, Casnar, and we didn't know where you were," he explained as the hot dish's contents wafted over them.

"It's fine, Kolyat. You and Tiran are allowed to order without me. I'll just have a small drink and a bagel."

"Where were you? Did I tell you the wrong time?" Kolyat asked.

Casnar glanced over at him and Tiran. "No, I was delayed. Had a few lady friends over last night and we just lost track of time." He smiled. "No hard feelings?"

"None," Kolyat replied, "just glad you made it."


	8. Chapter 8

The vert lift opened into a white hall, at either end glass doors framed by silver panels. Kolyat stepped through and searched for suite number 542.

_Nolyn Enterprises_

He drummed the pad folio in his fingers against his thigh. It was unbelievable to him that he felt so nervous. Father’s recommendation or not, Kolyat was in the vast imperial tower of Nolyn Enterprises. This was an opportunity that could lead him down many paths, if he could just calm down his flying pulse. Stepping faster than he would have liked, Kolyat made for the doors on the right. They were labeled suites 500 to 599. The moment he stepped through, an android with blue hair and a soft yet streamlined physique clothed in prim business attire greeted him.

“Sere Krios, your omnitag has been identified. Welcome to Nolyn Enterprises. Your appointment with Chief Executive Braith Shepard is this way.”

Kolyat’s brow scales lifted, almost dropping his pad folio. He scanned his memory for their last encounter. Huerta Memorial, where his father had needed a blood transfusion after saving some councilor’s life. His memory took him back in time, fingers tightening on the tie around his neck.

_“Thank God, you’re here!”_

_“Where is he? What’s happening?”_

_“Some asshole stabbed him with a sword, Kolyat! A sword!”_

_“Get him to hematology and they’ll prep him for the transfusion.”_

_“Hang in there, kid, your dad’s going to be okay. You’re here, Shepard’s screaming at him, and Thane’s not going anywhere without his rifle.”_

The android patiently waited outside the monotonous frame of doors beyond the trendy furniture of the next room. “This way, sir. May I bring you water or some other alcoholic refreshment?”

He studied the android’s blue eyes, mechanical and emotionless. He considered its offer and asked, “Do you have cane soda?”

“Miss Shepard stocks her cryo cabinet with a variety of carbonated water and fruit mixes. I believe drell are partial to the flavor raspberry. Would you care for one?”

_Miss._

“Raspberry? How many drell does she have hanging around?”

“I have counted two, three now with your addition.”

The doors slid open to welcome him into a lofty office with simplified structures of furniture. There were no windows, being at the center of the tower, but light seemed to be evident on either side of a mantle wall behind a heavy-looking white desk. Kolyat’s head arced from one side of the office to the other. The android had gone ahead of him and disappeared behind the right side of the mantle, returning a moment later with a fashionable, metallic canteen of what he assumed would be a drink for him. Kolyat took the offered container and looked into the void at the mouth. His sense of smell detected the sweet syrup in the drink and, curious, he sipped the contents. The android took its post to the left of the walkway between the mantle and the opposite wall, while the light of the right passage dimmed and danced with someone approaching. Placing his pad folio on the desk with the canteen, Kolyat happened to look up as Braith Shepard appeared.

Kolyat resisted letting his jaw fall slack. So this was the head of Nolyn Enterprises. She was nothing even close to what he remembered. The Braith he knew was either armored or in an Alliance uniform. This current version of the woman was clean, pressed in a suit and jacket, her hair shorter than ever. Short, voluminous locks were tousled over her head. Kolyat stood as tall as he could, his body tightening at the sight of her. Did he remember his father saying something about them being an item?

He kept the hoarseness from his voice, but the appreciation was in his eyes. “Commander.”

She smiled, pushing a black lock of hair away from her face and reaching to shake his hand. “There he is. Kolyat, it’s been a long time. Please, call me Braith. How are you?”

Her hand in his grip felt cool to the touch. He gave a firm shake and squeezed, feeling foolish about his apparent enthusiasm. She seemed to take it as friendliness and waited until he seated himself on the quilted bench in front of her desk. He gestured at the pad folio and quickly returned his eyes to her face.

“You look good, Comm—I mean Braith.” His eyelids twinged. “So you’re the mind behind Nolyn?”

“Just the front woman, Kolyat,” she humbly replied, “the intelligence is throughout. I just stand here and greet people. Or frighten them.”

Her smile shown through and Kolyat dared to scent her. Different from before, sweet, some flowery perfume. “Civilian life suits you.”

“So what have you been up to this past year, Kolyat? You used to keep busy, as I recall.”

He softly laughed, working up his charm. “Trying. Hard to compare myself with the woman whose idea of free time is suicide missions and hunting down estranged sons. . . I remember when we met at The Diorhball.”

His voice dropped an octave and Braith’s eyebrow arched higher.

“. . . I still think about the what if.”

She pushed off the desk and strut, one heel in front of the other, across the floor to him. A contented hum came from her chest as she drew nearer, Kolyat leaning forward to spread his palms. She stepped over his thighs and straddled his legs, letting him rub her back under the jacket with his hand. She massaged her palms into the smooth fabric of his coat, flipping up the lapels to slide her hands between the layers of cloth. Kolyat slitted his eyes and tried to breathe in that heady perfume, enjoying the feel of her weight in his lap. He gently lifted her knees and arranged her feet around his waist.

“I’m so glad to hear, Kolyat. The moment I knew I’d have you alone in my office, I thought of all the nasty things I could do to you if only you knew I wanted you as bad. I thought I’d have to make the first move, but you’ve given me the signal to let you come. . . right. . . in.” She slid her arms around the nape of his neck and pulled him forward for a kiss. The dress suit crinkled against his physique as he stood, cradling that fine ass. Both her heels fell to floor, feet protected in a sheer stocking. One of his hands moved to knead her calf through the silk, encouraging a moan from Braith. With a deep inhale, Kolyat sucked in the scent of her clothes, skin, and hair.

“I guess this one time I can do the hard work for you, Commander, and you can just lay back and relax.”

He moved to the desk to lay her down on the white surface, arching to remove his coat as he watched her teasingly flick her tongue out and wet her upper lip, fingernails unfastening the collar clips at the neck of her jacket. Her sensuous eyes focused lower down as he began to unclasp his belt, smiling at her while he reached in his pants’ zipper and pulled out a swollen, rock hard. . .

“. . . Kolyat.”

“Hmm?”

He was sitting across from her at the desk, reality cruelly clicking back into place. Braith was eyeing the complacent grin on his face before it suddenly vanished and his focus returned.

“So what do you think of the position?”

Trying to concentrate on what she had just extolled while combatting the fantasy of her laid over the desk, Kolyat rubbed a nervous hand over his crest. He tried to remember what she had just said. He could remember everything perfectly. . . If only he had paid attention.

“Sorry, Command–Braith. I’m thinking on it,” which was part truthful. “Would you mind going over the hard points again?”

Braith looked annoyed, but she adjusted to Kolyat’s strange tactics of stalling and proceeded to translate his question as best she could.

“If by hard points, you mean the grunt work you’re not likely to enjoy. I suggest considering how you can stomach heavy lifting and half the pay, maybe even a quarter of what you used to make with Panos. It’s not glamorous, but I assume your father hinted at that before coming here. Otherwise, why would you bother?”

Kolyat fidgeted with discomfort, fighting down his excitement while also controlling the uncertainty that was nipping at him. “Grunt work? Heavy lifting? I think I can handle those, but you’re saying it’s not–“

“It definitely is not information or assassination. That won’t be your responsibility. Not even close.”

“You want me to be a delivery boy. That’s what you’re offering? With my skills and what I’ve done in the past, you surmise the only use I can be is to run errands all over Lothairaxl?”

She sucked her lips together in a tight pouch that distracted him by their lushness. Braith crossed arms over the red fabric between her jacket and stabbed him with a glare. His manner was not something she was used to other than from idiots who knew no better and lived for a few seconds after the fact. Either those people, or Jack.

“Loading plans involve a little more strategy than being fast to drop off packages and collect signatures. So, no, you won’t be an errand runner. I’ve got enough as is. Think of it more as a captain’s gig, setting up the ships to be stocked and ready for deload as efficiently as possible.“

“This is insulting.” He pushed the chair back and stood. “I’ll take my skills somewhere else. I’m not going to pretend to be some krogan in a warehouse moving crates on and offcarts.”

“Kolyat. . .”

“This is beneath me!”

“Kolyat, I’m trying to help. I would never dishonor someone by offering them anything less than what their experience could handle. It’s been years since you had any work along the lines of independence you’re used to. Besides, that’s not what I need. This job requires teamwork, and I know that will be a challenge for you. Show me you can play nice and grow into a team, then I can consider you for other operations.”

He fumed, “Tell your droid to let me out.”

Braith pressed her thigh against the desk edge as she calmly waited. EDI was by the coffee table, observing with a curious expression and making no sign of moving to his wishes.

“Your skills have no application without proper employment, Kolyat,” she said. “The sooner you take your head out of your ass, the sooner you can start growing up.“

“Miss Shepard, you have an unexpected social call.”

Braith moved behind the desk, and Kolyat noticed her hand disappear. The doors opened, their sound making him turn as the android serenely walked towards the entrance. It was his father, tall, dark persona entering the office and politely acknowledging the android who accepted his heavy leather coat.

“Thane,” Braith said with relief, “what are you doing here?”

“I thought I’d surprise you both seeing that I knew you two would be together,” he answered.

Thane was washed and dressed into a relaxed fit suit of green with gray lining. He offered his hand to his son, who shook it and allowed himself to be pulled into a light embrace.

“Are you now an employee of Nolyn?”

“We’re. . . No. I’ll take the offer under consideration, but I don’t think it’s what I’m looking for, Dad.” He lied. _No way am I being a courier._

Kolyat stepped away and moved towards the door, thinking he would let himself to the exit. His father’s rough, velvety voice halted him.

“If it’s about money. . . It may not be what you are used to earning, but Nolyn is able to offer its employees a generous income and side benefits.”

His son had a cool stare ready. “It’s grunt labor, Dad. Like you used to perform when you and Mom were married.”

Thane ignored the obvious jab. He knew Braith would not be affected either.

“I’m aware,” Thane replied, his eyes focused on Kolyat. “I warned you it would not be glamorous. It is an excellent opportunity, however. The role will evolve and I assure you that the men and women you will meet will make your sacrifice worth while.”

“Dad, when I agreed to this interview, I thought you’d get me something along the line of work you used to know, maybe still do if you’d admit it. I’m not doing labor, not after what I saw it put you through.”

“This would be different, Kolyat. I am not working with the ignorant and uneducated, granted there is something to be said of even the laborers I met with less education than I had–“

“I left Kahje to follow in your footsteps. If this is where those footsteps lead, then I’m going off on my own.”


	9. Chapter 9

The glass doors slid open and Kolyat stormed out in as silent a manner as possible. He went passed the lobby with all of the modern and trendy furniture, thinking it stupid and wondering why he had found some excitement from looking at it. His reaction to Braith’s physical presence also embarrassed and flustered him, and while a bit of the drell felt wrong for what he had said to his father, he was in no mood to go back and make amends. He would _not_ be a courier. That was Tiran’s job, and Tiran looked worn from it. _Panos_ had given him an opportunity to do the wetwork and spying that he had hoped his father had done, and what he wanted to emulate. Maybe to prove the wrong things to himself. He sought his helmet, hanging on a hook on the pristine walls, and paused as he unhooked it to carry with him to the vert lift.

_Damn it._

He had left his pad folio behind. And the canteen of soda.

_Damn. . . Damn. Damn!_

He slapped his palm on his helmet, angry with himself. To think he would have been a courier for his. . . Father’s woman. . . A future bride? That appealed to him. At least if that were in the works, Kolyat would stand to inherit a trade empire, a whole _navarre_.

But that was getting ahead.

Turning down the hall and heading towards the vert lift, he began to smile some at the game he was playing in his head. Stick around, wait for things to happen between he and his future mother-in-law, and that would clear up any hurts for lack of inheritance, though he really lacked only in employment of something useful for his hands. He wanted to get back to it, no doubt. Just not as a courier. He was no gopher. Nor would he use his bilinear to. . .

The doors opened to the vert lift and a pile of boxes stepped through. Kolyat stepped back and watched the deliveryman carry them to Braith’s office.

His eyes caught sight of Thane kissing Braith on the mouth, nothing vulgar, but it was. . . Sweet, Kolyat had to admit. He could see them through the doors, his father turning away to intercept the deliveryman, but he stepped around him as Braith handled the drop off instead. Kolyat willed the vert lift to close faster as he stepped inside and turned, but his father was already there. He quietly pressed the door hold button and handed his son his pad folio. And the drink.

“Kolyat, trust is not so easily earned. You need to realize that despite you being my son, there is a challenge that all of Braith’s future employees must face. She has been through the fire with most of us, and you are but a child in her eyes. Do not be offended by this statement. Were you there on Omega? Or when we found the Mu Relay? Did you see the Reapers from their belly, eye to eye, and fight the code that was operating them? Did you nearly die with her fighting alongside you, holding back wave after wave of enemies while trying to launch missiles from a tank at an impending Harbinger?”

“It’s also a benefit if you get to sleep with her.”

Thane frowned at his son’s callous remark. “Is that why you are undisposed to the offer? The real reason.”

“No, I’m just not a courier, Dad. I did more than just sit around and twiddle my thumbs at _Panos_. Legitimate wetwork, the way you used to. . .” He paused at his father’s dark look, immediately wondering if he had crossed a line somehow with this information sharing. Kolyat’s grimace found its way back onto his face. “I did what I had to do that I knew I had the skill set for.”

“And you were successful.” It was no question.

“Enough,” Kolyat replied, shirking his gaze away to see the deliveryman return and excuse himself to dash into the vert lift. Kolyat moved out. The doors closed behind him, sealing the man from view. Kolyat stared at his father, Braith having come through the doors of her lobby office to put her arm around Thane’s waist, over his shirt. EDI, the new droid, came silently over.

“You two okay?”

“Kolyat was yet informing me of his work at _Panos_.” Thane’s disapproval was in his brow. “It seems that he was beginning to learn the ropes through others besides the Hanar.”

“Of your trade, I take it?” Braith leaned against him, trying to push the drell over and get him to loosen up. Thane’s fists relaxed, having unconsciously closed. He turned his face to hers and smiled. “I see.”

Kolyat, still frowning, turned and jabbed the door, having stepped out to let the deliveryman in. He now would officially take his leave.

“Kolyat,” Braith started, “if you were capable enough to be considered for some decent work at _Panos_ , why don’t you come over for dinner tonight and tell us more about what you were doing before we found you?”

Kolyat stilled. He looked to Braith as the doors pinged open. “Uh. . . Sure. . . What’s for dinner?”

Thane grinned and replied, “A dish called ‘casserole’. It is far from anything you have ever tried on Kahje or the Citadel.”

“Is that a good thing?”

Thane made a face and Braith twisted her knuckle into his side, the old assassin bending away to catch and control her wrist as he turned her and walked her back towards the office. “Excuse me, Kolyat. I have a meeting to attend, and I will see you around six o’clock for dinner.”

Kolyat watched the grey eyes widen as Thane and Braith chuckled into the doors, leaving EDI and him behind. The glass doors closed as they moved farther out of view, and Kolyat rolled his eyes, both in envy and disgust at having to see his father and future mother-in-law, he had no doubt, shamelessly flirting in front of him.

The doors closed in the office in back, and Thane spread Braith against her desk, running his hands up the fronts of her thighs, bending to a kiss. He purred from his throat, letting her feel the coaxing vibrations of his ability to select and entice the primitive response of her own biology.

“Not now, Thane. . . Don’t do that thing you do to make me all wet. Not here in my office. Kolyat’s barely off the floor.”

“I know,” he sighed, stopping and relaxing his grip on her pants and thighs. He tugged her to feel his hardness. “You know how much I’ve missed you, and you’ve been toying with my curiosity, what with that ring you left on the bed. . . Did you think you could make me jealous?”

“Maybe a little. . . I think I offended Kolyat,” she switched topics. “He did not look happy after the offer.”

“I told you he would be sensitive, perhaps reluctant. I had my suspicions about _Panos_ , but the syndicate was not something I could study well enough what with our tasks before the Mu Relay and your. . . Missions thereafter.”

She considered him, thoughtful, as she traced his lip with her nail, pressing a little deeper until it indented against his teeth. There was a small pain as she pushed it against the tops, and Thane growled, pulling her in for another kiss, tucking her hand behind her back as he bit her own jaw.

“I love you, Braith,” he murmured after the nip, “let me show you later what I intend to do about that need of yours.”

“You going to take out the leather?” she husked, breathing into his mouth as he swept his tongue through her lips.

“Maybe,” he hummed, tightening his grip on her waist and giving a hinting thrust.

“You keep that up, I’m going to have to break policy and put the tints on the glass.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t yet.”

While Thane and Braith played with each other’s temptings, Kolyat tugged on his helmet and threw his leg over the Coalan below ground level. He snatched back the kickstand with his heel and revved the motor, thundering in the garage. Coasting into a curve from his parking spot he rode the ramp up and out onto the street, filing in with traffic and gliding along below speed. His mind was a mess right at the moment, and he wanted to think. How could he convince Braith and his father that he was more deserving of a higher role than deliveries? In all fairness, he recalled, Braith had said it was more of a ‘captain’ gig, though he would have to learn and work alongside others, proving he was a teammate. He _was_ a teammate, he thought. _Panos_ , as independent as his assignments had been, _was_ his team. They had given him the prestige and know-how of killing other people, being feared and respected on the Citadel, and praised him for doing their good work.


	10. Chapter 10

“What do you mean, she offered you deliveries?” Casnar snapped his pencil, listening on the comm to his nephew’s voice through the speaker in his helmet as Kolyat sped along Orbin Street, passing glitzy shops meant for the higher powered by affluence on Lothairaxl. “Does the bitch know about what you did for _Panos_?” He angrily rubbed his crests, taking a heated breath at the slight his nephew had received.

 _And supported by his own bastard father!_ Casnar’s lip snarled in a silent growl. _What gall!_

“I didn’t say, Uncle Casnar. I think I’ll tell them tonight when I go over. Hopefully they won’t bang before I get there.”

“That would be awkward.” He chuckled, thinking of Thane with a human.

“Tell me about it. . . Say, maybe you’ve some experience with negotiating over this type of job deal?”

“I. . . Didn’t really have to apply anywhere, Kolyat. . . My father was basically my keycard into most opportunities—that being limited to the Hanar when I moved to watch your mother.”

“Oh. . . Well, maybe you can help convince my dad that I deserve more than just a courier role?”

Casnar looked at the stains in the backseat of his skyrunner. “I. . . Guess I could finish up my work here and doomsday drop the party. . . What time are you meeting them at?”

“Six, but I’ll be cool about it if you need a little extra time. I understand you’re getting requested kind of last minute.”

“No, no. . . No problem, Kolyat. I’ll be there. Did Thane mention _where_ exactly he and Miss Shepard hide themselves?”

“I haven’t gotten the deets yet, but when I do, I’ll forward them. You have a good day, Uncle Cas. I’ll touch base with you later.”

“Nice. Letting you go, kid.” He hung up the comm and looked back at the damage in the leather, no doubt gathering at least a couple thousand in credits or more for dry cleaning and stain removal, but it might just be worth it to replace the whole lining and cushions. _It was a good fuck, but could have been better if she’d given some head. No matter,_ he shrugged, starting the engine and driving to find a detailer to quote him some costs. A batarian garage shop, or maybe that skyrunner dealership he saw on his way to the café that morning.

 _Ve Boulevarde has some sweet legs angling for a feel,_ he thought, turning down the wide street and coasting through the scenery on his way back to Ayr Heights. Keeping pace with traffic, stopping and going as courtesans set foot into their clients’ vehicles, he hummed about the prospect of seeing Thane and the famous Braith Shepard. A commander, he heard, with a wealthy empire and a loyal _navarre_ built off the recruits she’d made in her career as a captain serving the Alliance, now the Galactic Union. He wondered if maybe there was a little opportunity to be taken advantage of in working for someone like that. _Thane obviously does since he’s fucking her._

The day was just starting. He had plenty of time to think about what he could share over dinner tonight with Thane and Braith Shepard in support of his young nephew. It could be profitable if they all worked together, and surely a commander would understand the need for increased funding. . .

Would she accept bribes if he needed to push the extra dough at her to land Kolyat something more respectable than deliveries? Or was she that despicable altruistic sort, fame need not warrant respite, and lust for money was nonqualifiable? He doubted it. To pull off what she had in the Reaper War, the commander had to have whelt and dealt.

Besides, he really wanted to see the famous Commander Shepard and learn just how loyal a crew she had. . .

Miranda picked up the incoming voice server and logged in her ID. “Nolyn Labs. Commander, what do you want this time?”

“Lawson, I need two stiff syringes for cronking out two big Keepers from Charon. Can you pull that off for me by late night Monday? Feron’s out on call right now, and I want to make a move on one of the Keepers if not two.”

“You’re kidding, right? I need ten quarries of synthetic epifanio with a viral pastora for moving through one of the big ones, and that’s just a guess.”

Miranda scratched some figures into a stylus pad on her desk and shoved the memo to an exmail box, relaying the order to internal—Mordin Solus.

“I can put an order in and _maybe_ get you something by the end of the day in terms of an ETD. What are you up to tonight?”

“I got a father-son date lined up for my casserole dish you taught me last week.”

Miranda laughed. “The one Thane _hates_?”

“I made some adjustments for the Drell’s sensitivity to dairy. Who knew he was lactose intolerant?”

“I believe his word was ‘foulness’, if I’m correct,” Miranda repeated. She sat back in her wobble chair, kicking up her heels and crossing both knees high. “The son. . . Didn’t he think you were hitting on him the first time you met?”

“You have no idea,” Braith said, twirling a stylus between her fingertips seven floors above Labs. “I’m pretty sure he remembered it, too, because I could see him slipping into one of those solipsisms, only unlike Thane, he was getting hard at the actual interview. Right—in—front—of—me.” She heard a snickering on the other end.

“Did he accept the role, by any chance? We need a new captain for Cabal squad. Joker’s adamant about fighting Vega, and neither one of them are sound for guiding logistics without EDI’s memory. . . The real EDI.”

Braith frowned, dropping her receiver as she pinched her lip to hide back tears from the sudden memory of Joker holding the collapsed ‘gynoid’of EDI’s artificial body. Taking more than a second, she could hear Miranda asking for her, if she was okay. Fluttering back tears and wetness in her eyes, the blur making things gauzy. . .

“Yeah, we’re working on him. I know you don’t approve—“

“I know you don’t trust easily, Commander.” Miranda bit her lip, freeing the flesh before she spoke again. “We do need someone for that role as it’s setting us back ten million in credits, by my projections. James is a good leader, but we could really use a Drell memory to fit their type of schedule, and Feron and Thane are both reluctant.”

“Whereas Kolyat wants to be doing wetwork and info assignments for a living.”

“Does he know what the job _involves_?”

“I can’t come right out and say it, you know.”

“True. . .”

“So. . . Courier.”

“Courier.”

Braith closed the line and leaned back, checking the timer for her casserole dish baking in the oven. She ran the calculations in her head for what time she would have to take it out and add some more potatoes. Having a _navarre_ at your control, you could take advantage of some of the trades, and most of what she knew was luxury was right at her fingertips. She couldn’t complain, and wouldn’t pay any attention to those who bitched at her about taking a little skim off the top of some of the orders. For the most part, Nolyn was not _her_ enterprise, but a corporation with stockholders who happened to have partnered with her throughout the war. And no one was about to give the woman who killed the Reaper AI and prevented the Reapers from harvesting everyone a hard time. This was her retirement. . . Hers and Thane’s.

She heard the snap of something in the next room, and curious, forgot about the casserole since there was at least another hour to go. She found Thane in the bedroom, rearranging their furniture.

Naked.

“What are you doing?” she laughed, stepping back from the door as he charged at her from the bureau, a grin on his face and his body most expecting of their hour alone before guests.

“I’ve moved some things into place for our experimentation.”

He caught her in the kitchen. Braith flicked up an eyebrow tip and let him pick her up, arms around her waist, carrying her back into the room where he closed the door to listen for the timer above the stove.

By 5:45, Braith and Thane were panting, draped over the shoe chair on which they pulled on their boots in the morning in gearing up for trips off world. Thane eased himself out of her, tugging up on the halter he had dressed her in and unclipping a lead that had been attached to his wrist.

“Feeling better?”

“God _damn_. That was _not_ what I was expecting, but I would gladly live through it again.”

He chuckled, picking her up in his arms and cradling her onto the bed, where he administered more, minus the leathers and straps.

“This couldn’t have waited?”

“We can sterilize the apartment before Kolyat comes over. I’ll set up the bots and let them do what they need so your delectable scent is not wafting about with mine.”

“Thank god for AI—I mean, VI.”

Thane waited, sitting up on the bed as he saw her eyes glass over. “What is it, Braith? Are you still thinking about EDI?” He swept her hair aside, cupping her cheek firmly and feeling the cool skin with its sweat.

“I can’t help it,” Braith replied, sitting up, too, “I can’t stop thinking about rebuilding her. EDI 2.0 is just not the same, and I owe Joker for. . . Killing her.”

Thane cupped her hands and kissed her fingers, one by one. “You’ll let go of it. Eventually, and with time.”

“What if I don’t want to? EDI saved us on multiple occasions. What if. . .”

“If you build another AI, you will be going against the Galactic Union, and that would be _very bad_ for us. We don’t want another Reaper War anytime soon.”

“Didn’t you say the war was over not a few hours ago?”

“This morning, before I saw you at Nolyn.”

Braith turned away and went into the shower. She washed as Thane listened to the falling of water, activating small little mechs that looked like winged robots and letting them scan and incinerate telltale molecules of scent and cell in the room. Two went outside and tended the living room, study, dining area, and kitchen, as well as the foyer and behind the vid set.

“Is this yours?” Braith had come from the shower, holding up some small black underwear piece. “I can’t recall if it’s your thong or mine.”

Thane wrenched the fabric from her fingertips. “It’s not a _thong_. It’s a coverling for Drell genitalia. It does _not_ get worn between our _buttocks_.”

Braith rolled her eyes and flicked her towel at him, snapping it against his hip. “It looks like a thong to me, and I’ll forever maintain that conviction.”

“Conviction,” he huffed, tossing the sensitives into his open drawer. “You wear an interesting array of clothing since you earned a million in profits from your first quarter this year. Credit-pinching not your thing anymore, Braith?”

“I find that pulling on granny briefs and sports bras gets tiring when you don’t have to wear the armor. So I dress in the more delicate.” She pulled on a lace push-up and some skimpy black underwear that remarkably did _not_ look like Thane’s gauntlet.

He stared for a little bit, unable _not_ to as she bent over and pulled up stockings to her thighs, then a garter over her hips, snapping the connectors in place. A black slip of satin went over her arms, down passed her butt cheeks. Thane growled at having been aroused into another new—

“Could you take out the casserole and add those poached potatoes that I have next to the stove?”

“Casserole,” he muttered, pulling on his robe and heading into the kitchen, the burn of memory in his mind tantalizing him as he cursed all the way to the tiled floor. “Show me that body with that costume and send me to change the casserole over. Indeed.” He did as bidden, opened the door and pulling out the tray, lifting the ceramic and opening the bowl on the counter. He dished out the potatoes, taking his mind off Braith while he counted and strategically arrayed each slice into the bubbling, popping red dish with peppers, tubers and. . .

“Cherries?” He straightened, calling over his shoulder. “Braith!”

“What?” She shot out of the bedroom, worried her casserole had burned.

“What are cherries doing in this?”

“They’re not cherries. They’re tomatoes. It’ll be a little acidic, which I think you’ll like.”

Thane flexed his scales at her and took a fingertip of the hot concoction into his mouth. He licked, tasted, hummed and continued with the arrangement of potatoes. “I think you’re right. Provided there is no longer the death spell of some boviniate’s teats in here.”

Braith laughed, moving back towards the bedroom in a blouse with the slip dancing about her thighs. Thane hurried with the oven, closed the door, and ran back into the bedroom, Braith’s shrieks coming out as he tackled her onto the bed and closed his mouth on the plumpness through the fabric of her lace.

“Stop—no—don’t—Thane!”

“What? You dance around in nothing but this raw outfit of lust and I need to slake my thirst. I am a _very_ thirsty Drell.”

Braith sighed and smiled up at him, Thane hovering inches from her face. He then realized he hadn’t given her his gift. Running out of the bedroom, he went to his bag, shuffled through it, and revealed the small purse holding inside the necklace he’d picked up on Tuchanka. He went back into the bedroom, Braith in front of a stand-up mirror, pulling on a charcoal skirt over her slip and stockings. Thane leaned against the doorway, admiring her as she zipped up the back and closed the fasteners over her neck.

“I have something for you.”

She sashayed over to him, running her fingers through and mussing up her hair which she let air-dry. It fell in waves over her head and flipped in front of her eyes. He pushed it back out of the way as she leaned on his chest and looked up at him, wrinkling her nose.

“What have you got for me?”

“A gift that Grunt helped me find. Here,” he stepped around her. “Close your eyes.”

As she did, he waved his hand in front of her, then walked her back to the mirror. Removing the necklace from his robe, Thane arranged it around her head and lowered it against her chest, clasping the silver buckle in the back. “Open your eyes. . .”

Her fingers went straight to the silver black chains with their iridescent color and her eyes, steel grey, wide to see the sight against the black blouse. She stammered.

“This came from Tuchanka? It’s. . .”

“Exquisite, made by the sisters in the Kelphic Valley. Grunt spent an arm and a leg trying to procure it. I paid him back, of course. . . Do you like it?” He smiled at the oily shimmer of the jewels, and how well they matched her eyes and hair. She was his angel of death, and she was his alone. “I told you I’d bring something back nice. It fits you. Perfectly, I might add.” He lowered his mouth to her neck, sliding down the collar to kiss between the fabric and cool metal against her pale skin, and instantly she moaned with an electric hiss. “By the way, that casserole _does_ smell delicious.” He undid his robe behind her, setting free the throb against her skirt, pushing ever so gently.

“Thane, not now. Not now,” she breathed huffily as he snuck a kiss onto her mouth and slid his hand up her shirt and over her belly.

“Not. . . Now?” he teased.

Braith’s teeth smiled, her grin was spread so wide. She turned towards him, and Thane saw her go down in the mirror, his teeth baring as he felt her cover him with her hand and mouth.

“Oh, sweet. . .”

The doorbell rang and Thane cursed, grabbing his robes as Braith jumped up and ran to put on the rest of her clothes.

“We are _not_ done,” she pointed at him, hopping her heels on and shutting the door. Thane furiously went into the bathroom and ran the cold shower, the cleaning bots still buzzing about, chasing pheromones and arousal molecules.

Braith checked the door vid to see who was outside and blinked in shock. “Who the hell is this?”

She grabbed the knob, activating it with her touch, and let go. The door swung open and there was a very big yellow Drell with a bouquet of flowers and a dark bottle of wine.

“I think you have the wrong apartment.”

“Commander Shepard,” Casnar Soterios said, his eyes drinking her in and burning into her face, “I think I’m at the very right place, indeed. Kolyat’s uncle, Casnar Soterios. He invited me to get to know. . . You.” His green eyes flicked up to a door opening, Thane poking his head out to ask Braith who it was, and a muscle twitched in Casnar’s jaw. “Thane.”

Braith looked behind her. “You two know each other?”

Thane cursed inwardly. The last person he expected to see, and the least. He pulled on his sleeves, making a show of buttoning up his shirt, seeing the flowers and wine he had seen Casnar leave for Sapphire Krios once.

“Thane and I are related through law, not blood, fortunately. I am sure Sere Krios will invite his brother-in-law in with gusto, yes?”

Thane strode across the carpet and stuck out his hand, taking Casnar’s and brusquely shaking it. The two glared at each other, until Braith intervened, pushing Thane a step back and accepting the flowers from Casnar, as well as the bottle of wine, which she handed to Thane.

“Go add this to the casserole,” she ordered.

Thane looked at the bottle, then at Casnar.

“Thane.”

“Yes. . . Braith.” He sidestepped around her and carried the bottle to the kitchen, fuming that _this_ was what Kolyat had met them with for retribution.

Braith carried the flowers, a variety she did not know the names of, and found the vases stored on top of a glass cabinet. She was tall, but not tall enough, and required a knee up on the counter to reach it.

“Please, allow me,” Casnar said in a deep, velvet voice, suddenly feeling inspired to be proactive and helpful. He placed his hand close enough to warm her back, but not touch. Braith could feel the heat stemming from his fingertips and backed down to stand out of the way as Casnar easily reached up and picked out a blue vase among the three lining the top, which Braith had to admit would make the blues in the bouquet pop quite nicely. She took it from him.

“Thanks.”

He grinned, a tightlipped smiled, and gently bowed his scales. “I wouldn’t want to see you rip that _lovely_ skirt open, trying to get a little higher because of something _I_ could provide myself.”

Braith made a little nervous chuckle and skirted around him, suddenly feeling very naked in a pencil skirt and heels. _I’m going to get my gun now._

In the kitchen, she found Thane adding the wine, uncorked, to the casserole dish, steaming hot. He almost forgot himself in the rich aroma permeating the sauce.

“This is divine. Far better than Miranda’s—“

“Foulness, yes, I know— _this guy_ is your _brother-in-law?_ ” she rapidly whispered at him.

“Yes. He is. . . Very close to Kolyat.”

“He’s Irikah’s brother.”

“Yes.”

“Weird.”

“I tend to convince myself he doesn’t exist.”

Braith gazed over her shoulder at the yellow Drell dressed in a sharp blue suit, scanning the apartment and looking like he was trying to appreciate her and Thane’s décor. She almost smiled at how spoiled he looked, and she didn’t know anything about him. She turned back to Thane and rubbed his shoulder.

“He must come from wealth. He looks offended by our place.”

“He comes from Rakhana. He is heir to one of the richest empires still in existence on the planet.”

“Excuse me, Thane,” Casnar politely interrupted. “Do you mind if I use the facility? I came straight here from work. Haven’t had a chance to wash my hands.”

Thane’s scowl tightened, and Braith gave him the opportunity to take some more time to settle in with the fact of the Drell’s existence.

“It’s over there, by the door to the bedroom, go left. Yeah.” She turned back to Thane. “ _Why_ is he here?”

“I can only imagine. _One_ will have to talk to him,” Thane said, exasperated. He finished mixing the wine in and replaced the casserole in the oven. “Do we have any poison?”

She pat his chest, her lips rolled into her mouth as she laughed at him with her eyes. The same eyes reflecting the necklace on her blouse above her collarbones.

“You do look wonderful in that,” Thane said, pulling her to him and wrapping his arms round her lower back. “I am going to have to mention to Grunt that he has good taste.”

“He learned from his momma,” she grinned, pushing back with a kiss on his lips as he leaned into hers, “that, or Okeer implanted good taste in his imprints. How’d the big guy look anyway?”

“Strong. Bigger. He contends with Wrex over mating privileges, he claims, but females are all too scared of him.” He held his hands apart and cupped them together in an obscene gesture of the Krogan’s endowments.

“Did you see it yourself? Is that how you know? No wonder you were gone so—“

Her laughter cut her off as he squeezed her, tickling Braith in the ribs to get her back for making absurd claims. The deep chuckling in the other room reminded them who was with them and no longer in the washroom. Thane lowered his hand to Braith’s waist, and suddenly self conscious, removed it altogether.

This _was_ Casnar Soterios, after all.

“So I hear from Kolyat that you are offering him a role at Nolyn Enterprises.”

“That is privileged information. Not to be discussed with anyone besides Kolyat.”

Casnar came across the room, into the kitchen, his sleek shiny shoes clipping heavy on the floor. He put his hands on the counter island, running his palms flat over its curves and edges. He appraised its value, found it. . . Lacking, and returned his gaze to something more quality. His eyes picked up the oily necklace shimmering on Braith’s chest and licked his lips round into a pucker, which drew attention to the geometry of his face’s physique.

“Kolyat tells me of this information.”

“He tend to tell you a lot? And often?” Braith asked, crossing her arms.

“He shares _everything_ with me,” Casnar hinted, raising his eye ridges. “I like to think of him as a son, since he was without a father for so long.”

“Didn’t he have another uncle?”

“He has two. Myself and Thane’s brother, Rojelio. Happens to be an officer in one of the districts of the city. Colomvan, if my Drell memory serves me well.” He spread his fingers on the island, and found a basket full of apples. He picked the largest one, holding it firm in his hand, which engulfed it. The apples were not the small variety, much less real, but for display.

He made a face at the piece. “Why decorate with fake food? It seems to be common among humans to do this, not that I’ve made myself familiar with the taste of. . . Any. . . Yet.”

Braith glanced at Thane, who merely looked ahead, suffering Casnar’s lewd double entendres. He cleared his throat and irritably clicked.

The timer went off.

“Okay, take out the casserole and let it cool. Should be ready in thirty minutes.” Braith checked the time. “I wonder where Kolyat is.”

As if this were his cue, the computer in the apartment announced Kolyat’s arrival. Braith swore she would have to get the computer system upgraded to its current version and went to let the Drell in.


	11. Chapter 11

Braith greeted Kolyat at the door with a small smile that made him think something was up. He looked passed her at the apartment in which she and his father lived, amused that the apartment tower was not so far from his own. He was dressed in a grey suit, having chosen something a little more formal than just casuals since this was technically part of his interview. He looked at Braith from head to toe and was relieved he had chosen to dress appropriately. The vibrations in his inner ear picked up on tonal nuances from his father and his uncle, and his eyes popped a little when he realized Uncle Casnar had arrived before him.

“I take it you’ve met my uncle,” he said in a quiet, conciliatory tone.

Braith’s smile lingered, tight and widening, as she nodded her head and raised her eyebrows at him.

_Fuck, she looks hot._

Kolyat stepped in as she moved away to let him enter their abode, and he noticed some bots flying through the air and buzzing back into a room opposite their wall. Swinging his gaze to the right, over couches and into a lit kitchen with pale tiles, he saw his father and uncle squaring off over an island.

“Father,” Kolyat said, striding over, following Braith who led. He tried hard not to look at her body in the blouse and skirt, focusing more on what dynamic was between his relatives. And the delicious aroma permeating the apartment.

Thane’s face turned from Casnar and his eyes narrowed at his son, but softened a little.

“Kolyat, good of you to join us,” Thane said, stepping around to embrace the young Drell, and holding him at length in his hands, a smile coming to his face, “I see you dressed as though this were a business meeting instead of a family gathering.”

Kolyat looked to Braith and Casnar, who had turned his focus to him. The big yellow Drell turned, widening his arms for an expansive hug.

Patting his nephew’s back, Casnar gripped the Drell’s shoulder and gave him a congenial shake. “You did not tell me Braith Shepard was such an attractive employer. Just to work _under_ her would be compensation.”

 _Does this guy ever stop? Probably not without a hard punch or two,_ Braith thought, slipping in tight to Thane’s side.

Thane put his arm around her, taking a deep breath to center himself and keep calm. He would not let Casnar intimidate him from being comfortable with his lover.

Kolyat grinned at his uncle as Casnar stepped away, then looked at Braith, saying nothing that could be construed as unprofessional. _Panos_ training.

“Shall I open some wine and we can all sit down to talk?” Braith asked, looking expectantly at both Kolyat and Casnar. “I assume you’re here to speak on Kolyat’s behalf for whatever reason, and Kolyat,” she looked at him, “you want to convince me to extend you a different offer. . . But what I want to know is what you have to say about your former work since I believe it is important for you to prove.”

“Now see here,” Casnar said, his voice changing its demeanor, something sterner, condescending. He almost pointed his fingers at her. “You have offered my nephew a _couriering_ job that demeans what he is entitled to. And he has nothing— _nothing_ —to prove.”

Braith coolly gazed at him.

“I didn’t realize he had a spokesman, or an agent, representing his qualifications.”

Casnar smiled, though it was more of a leer. He could entertain a fantasy of eliciting some ‘qualifications’ from her while he went on, listing his nephew’s genealogy and who he was descended from on Rakhana. Thane turned his face and narrowed his glare at his son, who looked away, somewhat embarrassed by his uncle’s ostentatious account of the Soterios gene tree.

“. . . And dare I add, he happens to be a Krios, which though genetically _permuted_ , has its. . . Perks. Fortunately, the Soterios bloodline compensates well for shortcomings,” Casnar said, exchanging his gaze from Braith’s to Thane’s.

“Thank you, Casnar,” Thane said, straightening up, dignified. “Coming from you, sere, that is a high honor.”

Both Braith and Kolyat smirked.

“Enough,” Braith turned and picked up a bottle she had selected from her own wine holders on the counter and pulling out a mass accelerator de-corking kit from a drawer behind her and Thane. “Time for wine. Kolyat, redeem yourself for being late and help me pull out some wine glasses. I’ll be grading you on which styles you pair with the wine—Oh Mister Panos—“ she glanced at him, seeing him smile with a laughing grin. “And, Thane, please take your charming brother-in-law and sit his ass down in the royal living room for his majesty. Ask him if he wants a pillow fluffed and a big fan waved over those thick crests of his.”

“You’re mocking me,” Casnar said, eyeing the calves through the sheer stockings above her ankles. He wet his lower lip and grunted through his nose, Thane walking passed him as he turned to follow to the couches.

“Come on, Casnar,” Thane said, enjoying his lover’s dismissal of the egregious Drell, “sit down over here and we’ll bring some wine over. You will find Braith has exquisite taste in the achievable alcohols.”

“What I want to know is. . . Who is your purveyor of this wine,” Casnar stated drunkenly, three hours later into the night. The sun was setting through the bedroom windows, and Braith had turned on most of the lights. She flitted about in the apartment while the three Drell conversed civilly, Thane and Casnar having settled into an amiable routine.

“The Jophets are the luxury providor of fine wines in the Attican Traverse these days,” Thane responded, flicking the label off with his finger as he studied the lettering of the bottle. He set it down and pushed it towards Casnar, who picked it up and looked through the glass at Braith’s form on the other side. She was playing with the thermostat, taking an increment or two off.

“Fine wine, indeed,” Casnar relayed back, eyeing her legs in green. “Too bad you don’t get to sell it yourself.”

“That would be third party distribution, and we are strictly delivery,” Braith replied, bending away and turning to go into the bathroom. Casnar gazed enviously after her, Thane forming a small smile on his face.

“Do you like brandy, Casnar?”

“I like fine wine with pale labels and dark grey skirts.”

Kolyat and Thane looked at each other. Casnar gave Thane a devious grin. He was _very_ drunk.

“Find yourself a replacement for my sister. . . About time,” Casnar said as he tipped back the bottle and took a lusty swallow. His voice had lowered so only the Drell could hear. “You ever get tired of her, let me know and I’ll gladly pick my teeth with the leftovers.”

“Uncle Casnar,” Kolyat reprimanded, “you’ve drunk too much. I think it’s time. . .”

Braith came out, fluffing her hair and rubbing her eyes. She sat down on the coffee table and grabbed her wine glass, offering it out to the bearer of the bottle, which happened to be Casnar.

“Braith, I think it’s time we opened a different bottle. This red is getting too sweet for me,” Thane said, taking her glass and planting a kiss on her hand before getting up to go to the kitchen.

“So, Kolyat, what else were you going to tell me about that last trade you did for _Panos_? Did it actually go through and you didn’t have to kill anybody?”

“I took a hit for it. Sucked it down for a few credits because to deny the buyor what they wanted would have made _Panos_ lose face,” he replied, stiffening his right leg to run his arm up and down his thigh to rub some sore musculature. He passed his glass to Thane as Casnar leaned forward to place the bottle on the table and steady a drunken stare at Braith’s heels.

“That sounds awfully bold of you, taking one for the team. Could have gone bad, too, I imagine.”

He raised his glass to her. “I think you know what it’s like, Commander. That’s why I chose to share that story with you.”

She smiled and nodded, looking at Thane who’d sat down next to her on the table, which tipped a little under their combined weight. The two whooped and started laughing, enjoying the company, tipsiness, and shared clumsiness by two of the most able-bodied beings in the galaxy.

Casnar snorted disdainfully and stood up, the others ignoring him. Kolyat glanced at his uncle, however, and felt remorse. The Drell had always been kind to him, and present when his father wasn’t around. Seeing Thane with Braith making merry in love was possibly antagonizing the brother of his deceased mother. Kolyat knew he should be upset, and rightly. He cleared his throat, attracting his father’s attention as Braith looked down, leaning her head into his tebris.

“Are you happy, father?”

“I am,” he smiled, though his expression faded as he detected the nuance for the question’s origin. He bit his lip and looked to Braith, who had straightened and was looking directly at Kolyat.

“Does it make you feel like there’s some type of nepotism between my hiring you as chief of Cabal squad for Nolyn Enterprises for the reason that I don’t trust anyone else?”

Kolyat, Casnar, and Thane turned to look at her, but her grey, steel eyes were directed at Kolyat.

“I agree with the statement that there is some favoritism, or bias, because of my father, but I am honored to work for you.”

Braith stood and bent over the table, offering her handshake. Kolyat slipped his hand around hers, dumbstruck by the sudden Commander that had come out of her eyes. Casnar saw it, too, and Thane was always humbled when he heard his siha’s voice.

“I’m giving you a hard job, Kolyat. I’m not going to lie. We’re reconstructing a universe and I only trust my missions with the best. Thank you for coming over tonight and opening up about _Panos_. It means a lot to me, and especially to your father. Report to duty at 0600 tomorrow morning, and bring your wetgear.”

 _Are you shitting me?_ Kolyat stood up, taking the glass of Champagne that Thane had now offered, having left to the refrigerator to pull out the glasses that had been waiting. Kolyat grinned from ear to ear. “You were planning on giving me what I wanted all along.”

“No,” Braith said, eyeing him through a wave of hair, “but we planned on you telling us about _Panos_. I also have a large shipment of mass accelerator rays to deliver, and I don’t trust anyone else to handle pressure as well as I’ve seen you in the odds of facing your father and me after so many years. You’ll be traveling with my best pilot. Take care of him and the crew, and I’ll see you get a raise from our stockholders at the Galactic Union.”

Kolyat looked at his uncle, whose lips curved into a full grin. It seemed forced, which puzzled Kolyat, but he’d talk with his uncle later.

“Come on, Kolyat,” Thane said after finishing his sip of Champagne. I’ll walk you home. Braith?”

“Go ahead. You two need some father-son time.”


	12. The Devil That Knows You

Braith walked Thane, Kolyat, and Casnar to the end of the hall and pressed the call for the vert lift.

“He insists on taking the stairs, but considering your uncle’s inebriated state, I don’t think fifty floors is a good idea.”

Kolyat and Thane chuckled at Braith’s remark about Casnar, who was swaying a little, his hands in his pockets, a little song on his lips as he murmured at her, Thane, and Kolyat.

“. . . It was all fun and games. . . Until hearts got hurt. . .” Casnar looked at Braith and grinned.

 _Ugh_. She rolled her head to Thane and raised her eyelashes at him.

“Take care for me, will you? Don’t let anyone in who knocks after eight.”

“I won’t.” She smiled and kissed him lightly, letting them go into the lift as the doors stood waiting. Braith waved ‘bye-bye’ with a row of folding fingers, head tilting to see them through the door slit and Thane grinning back, chuckling with his son and even Casnar.

“She’s quite unexpected,” Thane said as the lift began to descend, “but she came into my life that way and I intend to keep her.”

“Hopefully you do a better job than what you did for my sister.”

Awkward silence ensued as the three listened to the period after Casnar’s sentiment.

“So, do you know if you can share anything about this Cabal squad she mentioned?” Kolyat asked his father.

“I would prefer not to discuss in present company,” he looked at Casnar, “but maybe one day you will be a stockholder, too, and enjoy the privileges of joint trading of information.”

“I would only be obliged,” Casnar said drolly. He leaned against a door.

“Well, do you have a ride home, Casnar?”

“I do.” He sniffed, rubbing his nose, eyes bleary. He had put some salt from Thane and Braith’s bathroom into his eyes and was looking tired and red.

“Maybe you should hire a cab,” Kolyat suggested.

“It’s got auto, son.”

Thane frowned at the expression.

The doors closed behind them as they exited into the lobby, crossing the stone flooring to the doors beyond. Thane scanned his card and the entrance freed, letting them out into the cool night air and fetid smells of the street.

“Goodnight, Uncle Casnar, and thanks for vouching for me,” Kolyat said, embracing his uncle, the two slapping heartily each other’s backs. Casnar gave him an extra squeeze and kissed his crown, pushing the younger Drell away.

Thane chuckled at his brother-in-law’s show of affection as even _he_ was given a cool hug and a condescending pat on the shoulder.

“Good luck,” Casnar said, and strode away, making a tall figure slightly swerving.

“Is he going to be okay?” Thane asked, a little concerned. It _was_ his brother-in-law, and Irikah’s older brother.

“Yeah, he’s been worse off,” Kolyat said, though he shook his crests. “Wine doesn’t usually do it to him though. I think his seeing you with Braith made him think of mom.”

Thane sighed, looking downward as they strolled the two blocks to the 2121 Hotel.

“I’m sorry it bothers you. . . Both of you. . . Irikah is still special to me. I didn’t think I’d—“

“Dad, it’s okay. At least I think it is for me. Braith could be a good thing for us. I can tell she loves you. And Mom’s gone.”

The doorbell rung. Braith straightened from cleaning up, flustered the computer wasn’t working and making her guest announcements. Thane and the others had just left, so she scanned the living room and kitchen quickly to see if someone had left a wallet or something behind.

“Who is it?”

“It’s Casnar,” the door comm replied. “I seem to have remembered that my skyrunner is in the shop tonight. Reupholstering.” He cleared his throat. “Might you know any cab companies that travel to Ayr Heights? I. . . Don’t typically use them. . . Beneath my standing—“

“How did you get here?”

“I took a limo.”

“Of course.” Braith wrang her hands. “Alright, I’ll call you. . .” She groaned. If she called him a cab, she’d have to invite him back upstairs and wait while he ogled her. _Better to shuttle his ass home and be done with it._

“Casnar?”

“Still waiting.” He sounded peevish. “The smell in these streets is rather unpleasant.”

Braith smiled. “I’ll be right down.”

Grabbing her fob, she went out the door after penning a note for Thane that ‘Your drunkass brother-in-law forgot how he got here, had no ride, and because I can’t send a rich, little pretty boy up through the districts on his own, I’m taking the skyrunner to drop him off at Ayr Heights. Be back in thirty. Love you, bye.’ She put on sneakers and grabbed a coat, running down the stairs all in fifteen minutes.

At the bottom, she was winded.

_Oh my God. I need to get back in shape._

She jogged in her skirt to the doors, where an irate Drell was standing outside in his fancy blue suit and nice black soles.

“What took you so long?” he demanded, raising his hands out to the sides. “This suit’s going to be saturated for days in this pit’s smell.”

“Jeez, Casnar, I’m sorry. I took the stairs.”

“You need it,” he said, taking out a cigarette suddenly and cracking a light. He waved it and shut the flame, then struck a rather cinematic pose on the street with his leg stretched out and his coat corner flipped over his wrist. Braith shook her head at how poses crossed planets due to centerspreads and vidmags. “Do you want one?”

“Not after you just insulted me about my state of fitness.” She was still puffing and walking away from him. She looked over her shoulder and stopped. “What are you doing?”

“Waiting for you to get the ride.”

Braith clicked her teeth together. “Fine. I’ll be right back.”

He smiled and waved at her.

 _What an ass!_ she thought, storming down the alley street to the garage underneath the tower. She didn’t know why she had chosen to live in Thane’s old bunker, though recalled it had been a way to keep their location safe from eyes that would expect more luxurious accommodations. She also suspected it had something to do with Kolyat.

Meeting with the skyrunner one ramp down, she unlocked and slipped inside the glossy black façade with white and red detailing. She opened the windows and turned on the ramp, floating it out easily, not wanting to scratch it like last time. Garrus had warned Thane about Braith’s handling with small vessels meant for land and air, and hadn’t inspired too much faith in her skills with keeping things well cared for and nice.

“I’m just more of the ‘rock it and roll it and hope for it to land on its wheels’ type,” she said out loud to herself, grinning.

Casnar turned as the skyrunner emerged from the alley and coasted to a stop. He saw the steel grey eyes look over at him from beneath a bang of black hair.

“You’re holding me up.”

Casnar smiled, flicked his cigarette, and strode over like he was going on a date. He leaned on the skyrunner and gazed down at her through the window.

“Don’t even think about asking to drive.”

He scowled. “I never let women drive me. Fetch my skyrunner, one thing, but drive?”

She began to back up.

“Alright, alright.”

Casnar walked across the front and got in the passenger side. He sat in the back. Braith looked over her shoulder at him.

“How’s it feel to be a chauffeur?” he asked, grinning broadly.

“What is your deal? Get the hell up front here. I’m not driving some spoiled pretty boy like a—“

“Chauffeur.”

“Yes.”

The door opened. Closed. The other door opened.

He seated himself and got comfortable.

“Right. Here we are.” He looked at her. “So you think I’m pretty.”

“I thought you were drunk.”

“I am.”

Braith rolled her eyes and accelerated forward, lifting the skyrunner to careen right and shoot down the street, picking up speed all too quickly.

“Aya, woman! You have the gall to question my decision to question your driving abilities?!”

“Oh, be quiet, you big lizard.”

“I am not a lizard. I do not have a sack for a penis, nor do I crawl on my belly. I might fuck on it, but that’s different.”

“What did you just say?”

“It’s true, isn’t it?” Casnar clutched the handles and console, driving his feet into the floor after strapping in his harness. He noticed Braith wasn’t wearing hers and reached over to pull the waist belt across her hips, securing it.

He got a whiff of her perfume and hair, and thought it. . . Pretty.

“As I was saying, lizards from your homeworld crawl on four legs and lay still when they fuck, waiting for some satchel to happenstance enter their females. I certainly do not lay still, nor do I crawl on my hands unless the woman is worth begging. And I’ve never met one who’s denied me.”

“Is that a fact.”

He looked at her, she looking ahead, focused on navigating through the towers. Lothairaxl was ugly down below, but high up in the air, one was a part of the upper culture. The lights of the city gleamed around her, flashing across her eyes, the wind from drafts below and what they were cutting through blowing back her hair and flipping her blouse. The oily necklace reflected the light, making her look exotic with her pale skin. A thin scar he noticed behind her ear.

“What is that imperfection on your head? Behind your ear, I mean?”

“It’s an implant node. It’s where if I need my bio amps worked on, the docs open it up and slide a scope in to mess around without peeling back the skin on my scalp.”

“Attractive.”

“Fuck off, would you?”

She was testy. He liked her zing. Braith glanced over at him admiring her against the backdrop of lights.

“So how did you meet Thane."

“Illium. Nos Astra. We were assigned together,” she clipped off, “and he helped me find the Collectors with the rest of the crew from the Normandy. We’re all pretty tight,” she added unnecessarily. “It’s nice to have family.”

“It is.”

The discomfort grew. Braith gripped the handles of the skyrunner and watched as Casnar held up his sleeve and revealed an omnitool, plugging in digits and taking over the vessel.

“What are you doing?” She took her hands away as the steering was taken over.

“I’m letting you relax, Commander, so we can talk.” He smiled in that cool way of his, leaning his head to the side. “You run Nolyn Enterprises.”

“How did you just hack—“

“I worked for the Hanar. We use planetary runners, a global grid, everything and anything that runs automatically and can be preprogrammed. This skyrunner happens to be a model manufactured offworld but owned by a Hanar conglomerate. TeckeCore. I have most of the software programming from before the war, and not much has changed. I’m also into espionage and quite good at what I learned.” He leaned forward, leering at her. “I want to buy your company.”

“It’s not for sale.”

“Is it? Isn’t everything with a price, Commander? You of all people must know this.”

She tensed, thinking of EDI and the Geth, even the Quarians that had been affected by the disruption of code sent out by the Crucible.

He touched the padding of leather of her chair behind her shoulder. “I think you need money for a certain project, Commander. I would like to offer it to you. I didn’t want to bring this up in front of Thane and Kolyat for obvious reasons. . . Them being related as family might have put pressure on you.” His finger threatened to touch her shoulder.

“Casnar, you touch me the way you’re looking at me and I’ll blow you out this runner.”

He grinned. _That would be nice._ “You’re pretty, Braith, but you’re not my cup of tea. I’ve already fucked in-laws before, and you. . . You’re almost there, and I’ve learned my lesson. Besides,” he shrugged, “I don’t mix sex and business. . . Not this type of business venture, at least.”

Braith narrowed her eyes. Casnar chuckled and leaned away.

“Twenty million. I’ll fund your little Keeper project, and give you trade on Rakhana for durril. It’s quite expensive, and a safer equivalent to Eezo, which I hear is scarce these days.” He grinned seductively at her. “Ten kabools of durril per one tonne of Eezo. That is the power I promise you.”

“What is a kabool?”

He held up his finger. “Multiply the weight of my hand by ten. That is how much durril can fulfill when used in place of Eezo. And it doesn’t have negative side effects.”

“You’re kidding me. And you’ve been sitting on this for how long?”

“We didn’t decide to branch out until after the war, but if you ever went to Nualavera, you would understand why Rakhana was evacuated and only the rich remained. Now, I am willing to give you a sample, but I don’t have it on me.”

“Let me guess. It’s in your skyrunner.”

“My tower, actually.”

The skyrunner began to ascend, Braith now holding the console and sides. Her hand accidentally touched Casnar’s, and he pat her comfortingly.

“Does the Commander of the Galactic Union usually startle when she’s not in control?” He looked at her wrist and saw the mark of chafing in the flash of lights. “Or do you like it when you’re not in control."

She looked out the window as the skyrunner banked, alighting on what was Ayr Heights, which lived to the play of its name. The tower was enormous, purple and broad, catching and reflecting light like a presidential palace of glass. The windows were tinted, but the pavillion on top was clear, showing a landing sight for several skyrunners and a pool against the edge with a diving board and stairs leading to a glass balcony before entering what was the summit of the hotel.

Braith wondered what the hell she was doing as the skyrunner landed and the door opened.

“I didn’t even know it could do that on its own.” She stepped out on her sneakers and looked about as the door closed. The skyrunner hummed with a lock.

Casnar was already up the stairs and unbuttoning his coat. “Are you coming up? I won’t take no for an answer.”

“I have to get back to Thane.” She looked at him, willing him to see she was set.

“I’m not trying to fuck you, Commander. If I’d wanted to do that, I would have done it already. Now get your ass up here and come see what I’ve got to show you.”

She watched him climb the glass steps, the curiosity eating at her as he was walking through the glass windows and could be seen tossing his coat and unbuttoning his shirt, reducing his collar and then going to a liquor cabinet to pull out some bottles and select two tumblers. Each one he set on the glass countertops and poured golden liquor into two. He drank one. Drank the other.

Braith wasn’t sure if she should be offended.

 _Damn it. This business life is just like war. Every nuance, every gesture, every goddamn insult. ._.

She ran up the steps.

“Ah-ah,” he waved his fingers, holding another tumbler, a third, this one with ice and amber fluid. “No sneakers on my glass. Scuffings. I don’t like.”

“Huh?”

She took off her sneakers, making careful not to slip on her stockings as she slid and slipped up the stairs, holding the railing. She looked at Casnar, who was delighting in her uncertainty of foot.

“Do you always try to make potential business partners feel at a disadvantage? Because it’s not entirely inspiring of confidence in a level playing field.”

“You ever play Caly’caly, Commander?”

“No. Never even heard of it.”

“To be expected if all you see are Kahjic Drell. Rakhana, we have a sport called that, and it involved unlevel playing fields. One team starts with the upper advantage of stable surfaces and smooth tools, whereas the other must climb and fight for them, dispose of their advantages, and then use these against them.”

He caught her wrist as she slipped. Tugging her against him, he gripped her hair and looked down at her, yellow lips above hers.

 _Casnar_. She didn’t dare move her mouth, his was so close.

He pulled away, grinning.

“The advantage of the game is to know your adversary, Commander. To know how hard they’ll fall, and what way to make it lighter, or harder if you wish to hurt them.” He passed the glass in front of her, urging her to take it. “Drink, it will calm you.”

“I don’t do hard—“

“Yes, you do, Commander. You like it hard. It’s all you’ve ever known. Sometimes you want the control taken from you. I can help. What is it you want besides those Keepers? I notice your studies center around AI research.”

“How the hell do you know that?”

He released her hair, smelling his fingers as he walked away to his bar. Intricate lights flicked on, illuminating his skin and shirt. His ass was complemented by his pants, and he wore shoes, while she did not.

“I said before, and I’ll say again, I learned espionage when I worked for the Hanar. . . Corporate espionage. White collar work. Not what Thane did. Or Feron.”

“You know more about my company than you let on.”

“I know what I need to know to make you work for me, my dear.”

He clinked their glasses together, then offered out his hand. A thin vial with something blue and silver shined in the overhead pinlights.

“Is this. . . Durril, you said?”

“Durril, worth at least ten grand in credits.”

“For this vial as big as my pinky?”

“What’s a pinky? Is that a vulgar term for your genitalia?”

“My small finger.” _Pervert_.

“For this vial, yes. But this is specifically for consumption. It produces a wonderful high. Would you like to try some?”

“I’ll pass.”

She took the vial and walked over to a painting. “Is that a drellahna?”

“That is.”

He walked over to her and gazed up at it, a drellahna with fine auburn lips, laying posed over a rock with her flat chest bared to the sun, knees bent in erotic pose. The frills on her hips were covered in white silks streaming away from her body.

“Is that what Rakhana looks like?”

“The drellahna or the rocks? Both I suppose.” Casnar had a reverence in his voice. She looked at him, his gaze fixated on the painting. “What Rakhana used to be. Beautiful, ageless, virgin. . . What is it you want, Commander, that I can provide?” He turned to her, sipping his amber, waiting.

“I want to rebuild the AI.”

“Why?”

“I lost a friend, who was more of a child in that. . . She was starting to see the world for the very first time, through her own eyes. . . And I took that away from her when I destroyed the Citadel and the Reapers.”

“You wish to be the architect. The one who ends everything and begins again the way you see fit.”

“No, but I guess that’s how it sounds.”

His omnitool pinged, an alarm repeating on and off. He sipped his drink with her.

“I will bankroll you whatever you need, and provide you the durril that will help fuel our empire. You may have your AI. I want ownership in the company.”

“Deal.”

“You should go. Thane will be waiting, and ten minutes it will take you to return home.”


	13. Chapter 13

The next morning, Braith woke up with a dry hangover and attempted to crawl to the bathroom. Thane grabbed her hips and pulled her back on him.

“I heard the best way to absolve a hangover is to have sex.”

She moaned.

Thane tenderly massaged her skin, poking her where she hungered. Drawing her down to him, he coupled with her, rocking gently back and forth as they rode each other’s waves in the light of the drawn curtain, sun warming their bedroom, sweat filling in behind her knees.

Thane grunted as he let into her, rolled her over, and tried with renewed effort to make a baby.

She laughed when he told her over coffee ten minutes later, his hands already playing at the strap of her robe.

“So how was Casnar last night. Did he behave?”

“He—did,” she forced herself to say, instead of the fact she had let him buy into the company. Nothing was official yet, but she needed Miranda and Mordin at Labs to go over the durril.

“What is it, Braith? Are you alright? You seem tense.”

“I’m just thinking.”

“About?”

“I want to go in early, before Kolyat gets there. Talk to Miranda about something.”

“She’ll be up, I’m sure. Even with the amount of time it takes to do her hair.”

“She _is_ perfect.”

“So are you.” He cuddled her against the counter, nuzzling in the robe fold at her neck and inhaling. He lifted his chin into her hair, and stopped. “Braith, did Casnar touch you?”

“I fell and he caught me.”

“By the hair?”

She sucked her lips and excused herself. Thane followed her into the bedroom.

“Braith, really, did he touch you against your will.”

“It was nothing, honestly.”

Thane’s fists curled. He turned to his omnitool. Braith was on him in an instant, pulling him down to the bed.

“Sit, honey. I need to tell you something.”

“You didn’t sleep with him, did you?”

She narrowed her face. “Why would you say that?”

He sighed, shoulders sagging. “A long time ago, he slept with my brother’s wife. It was while they were taking care of Kolyat. Cassius has the gift, a rolling tongue.”

“Sounds like a hell of a gift.”

“It’s not. . . It’s an ability Drell fathers teach their sons. It makes drellahna respond for mating. It’s a coercive method.”

“Like forcing someone to have sex with them? I believe we call that rape.”

“It is. . . A different way of life on Rakhana.”

“It’s not like that thing you do on me with your throat, is it?”

“It’s actually an organ in the tebris that helps to produce the currents, but it activates receptors on drellahna that enables them to accept copulation with Drell more easily.”

She raised her eyebrows. “More easily?”

“The Rakhic Drell is well endowed. And a patriarch of a family has separate wives. It’s an old practice and phased out, thank goodness, but the ability is taught through each generation in the older lines. The Soterios have been around for a long time, so. . .”

“And it makes drellahna go wild with lust.” She started laughing.

“It’s not. . . Laughing while I’m trying to explain this is not helping. It just makes it very pleasant for the drellahna to copulate more than once. Anyway, I don’t think you would let Casnar try anything, but—“

“He gave me durril. In exchange for partial ownership of Nolyn.”

He stood up abruptly, staring at her.

“You what?”

“Look, I haven’t signed anything. Right now it’s just a verbal agreement and he offered me this.” She got up, went to her dresser and opened the top drawer. She tossed Thane the vial, which he snatched from the air. “This stuff is supposed to be better than Eezo. With just thirty pounds, you could fuel a ship’s reactor core. Think about it, Thane! This could save a fortune in R&D for a suitable replacement for Element Zero, plus we wouldn’t be hardballed by UA for mining extractions and playing that dangerous gambit. It’s safe supposedly. Safe enough to eat.”

“It’s highly addictive,” Thane said, staring now at her. “You didn’t try any, did you?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Braith, this is not safe. Nor is it sound! You cannot just sell ownership to my brother-in-law. . . You invite the devil in, and it will be hard to get him out.”

“He’s funding us. Twenty million credits.”

Thane fell silent.

“It’s absurd, but he just throws money out there like he’s full of it. Still, if his accounts are legitimate—“

“They are,” Thane said quietly. He tossed the vial on the bed. It shown blue and silver in the light of the morning sun slanting through the window. “It is a dangerous song you wish to play with him, Braith. Let us hope we don’t regret it.”

“With twenty million, I can fund more research on the _navarre_ , pay off Port, and give everyone raises. We can go after the Reapers—“

“Braith, there are no Reapers.”

“I meant the relays. The Keepers.”

He frowned and breathed loudly through his nose. “What does Casnar expect in return?”

“I’m going to offer him six percent.”

“He’ll laugh.”

“I don’t think he wants the company. More that he wants the reputation. Right now, we look like a shiny new cuff to him.”

“Casnar gets bored very easily, Braith. He might try and sell the company when he does.”

“He can’t if he doesn’t own all of it.”

“He could buy the others.”

“That’s paranoid.” She grimaced. “Why would the others want to leave?”

“Because that’s what happens when people become complacent. Things are good, people get idle, want more, and try to be whatever they want. Look at us. . .”

He pulled her up to him, taking her lips in his mouth and humming into her throat. He wanted nothing more than to lay back in the bed with her and let her ride him again.

“Siha, I want a child with you. I think it’s time we started thinking about our own research into that.”

“You’re joking, right?” She smiled warmly at him, touching his patak and caressing it down to his chin. “It would look weird.”

“That’s. . . Not maybe a point, but. . .” He frowned. “Braith, will you marry me?”

Her eyebrow twitched. Something Casnar had said. She leaned towards him. “Thane, do you know Casnar’s been spying on the corporation?”

“That wouldn’t surprise me. Casnar acts a fool very well, but the devil prefers to hide behind subtlety and duplicity. Why? Has he said something?”

“When I talked with him last night, he mentioned something about in-laws. . . I think he forecast we would be engaging in. . . These types of talks. It puts me to caution.”

“You think he’s planning on it.”

“Maybe. I have a suspicion now that you’ve brought this up.”

“The only possible route he could take is to lay claim over family ties on potential inheritances. Kolyat is not a benefacting employee.”

“Not yet, but he might.”

“Not with the number of others owning percent in the company.”

“I’m the chief though. I call the orders and stops. Technically Nolyn Enterprises is mine, and the _navarre_ only responds to me.”

He tapped the collarbone of her neck with his finger, laying his palm warm against her.

“That is true.”

“I think we should get ready for work.” She moved away from him, stripping out of her robe and walking into the shower. Thane sat down and thought. He pulled up his omnitool and scanned for messages, then pinged a letter to his son.

_Kolyat,_

_Please, whatever you do, do not sell shares to your uncle. You will be invested in Nolyn Enterprises, and we will give you stock. Keep an ear out for discussions related to apprehension in the company, and report to me should you hear anything. Your uncle is investing durril into Nolyn, and we could be in for a hostile takeover if it’s what I think he’s doing._

A second later, the ping came back, acknowledging from Kolyat.

_Why would Uncle Casnar have any involvement with the company? Did you offer him a role, too?_

Thane replied:

_Braith and Casnar had a talk last night while she dropped him off at Ayr Heights. I believe he is trying to seduce her with twenty million credits and a monopoly on the durril market, which as we know, has been kept private to Nualavera for quite some time. Help me protect Braith’s interests. The commander is wise, but she lets her passions guide her._

And much happened between Braith and the Reaper AI that she herself chose not to disclose, even with Thane.

Braith came from the shower and dressed, putting on a red shirt and grey pants, a black buckled belt, and patent leather shoes, short with a heel, blocked with a toe, and swept some cream through her hair as she quickly threw on some makeup and touched up her skin. She plucked her eyebrows, checked her underwear line, and went out into the bedroom where Thane was dressing into his travelgear, heavy black pants, red gloves, and a dark blue sweater. It was strange, but the breath of space was cold, and the gloves meant for warming and isolating screen icons readily and with ease in the AM1s.

“You need to get those gloves replaced with something darker. I really can’t afford to have you signaling to everyone like a stop sign.”

He chuckled. “If I were worried about fashion, I would have bought darker gloves. These were available at the time.”

“Well, I’ll talk to Miranda and see if we can put in an order to Labs to create a synthetic with a darker texture than what’s on those.”

He grabbed her waist and smiled. “I like to think that they’re coordinated with your favorite color. Red.”

Thane gave her another kiss and walked her out into the living room. Together they left the apartment, her necklace of his on the stand by the bed. Down to the lobby they went, passing few other residents as they made their way outside and around the block to the garage.

Thane opened the door for her, and Braith hesitated.

“Casnar hacked the skyrunner.”

“He did?”

“Yes. Said it’s owned by TeckeCore? Said he also had some programming for it.”

“I don’t think he will try and abduct us.”

Braith smirked. “That would be something.”

They entered the vehicle and drove it without hazard. Thane took the controls, opting not to be driven by Braith first thing in the morning. He apologized when she gave him a sour look.

“Your brother-in-law was not impressed with my driving last night.”

“That we can agree with.”

Braith gasped, nudging him with a hand. He grabbed it, kissed it, and let go to guide the skyrunner upwards.

Nolyn Enterprises was abuzz in the morning, even early as they were. Wetcrews were moving diligently through the lower tunnels, arranging shipments and guns for providing protection against pirating crews. It acted like a militia, despite the pretty façade. Kolyat was impressed, waiting in the lower entrance to the squads while Braith met with several crews, a variety of humans, salarians, grunts like soldiers from the war, and no one looking nearly as refined as the commander in her red and grey. She stood out, but she was meant to. She was the face of the corporation. Her black hair reflected the light, and her pale face seemed to absorb it, making her a bright presence in the lower, well lit tunnels converging beneath Nolyn Tower’s lobby.

She turned to him when the last crews left, manifests having been reviewed and tapped, and offered her arm to lead him. Kolyat took it, only too willing to feel her skin.

“You’re wearing short sleeves and your skin is like ice,” he said, alarmed by how cool she was.

“Body circulation was never optimal even after my reconstruction.”

 _So it’s true._ “I heard rumor you were rebuilt after an incident in space. I thought it was just stories.”

“No, it’s true, though no one likes to talk about it. The crew that was with me at the time was, umm, traumatized by the explosion that took me with it. . . Then the two years after. . . And after that, seeing me arrive to collect them for another mission as if I hadn’t skipped a beat.”

“Or a heartbeat.”

She looked at him and smiled. “Kolyat, you have a way with words.”

“I was raised by my uncle.”

“Ah.”

She thought how much that must hurt Thane. No wonder he wanted a child. Maybe to redeem himself for not being there through Kolyat’s own, or to prove to his son that he could have been a good father if his conditions were different like they were now.

“Your father’s very proud of you, you know. He often spoke to me about how much he regretted having to be separate from you, but he couldn’t risk losing you. What happened to your mother forced him to acknowledge that as long as he did what he did for work, to provide for you, you would always be at risk of being hurt by his enemies.”

“That’s why I went to _Panos_. To learn how to protect myself,” Kolyat allowed to admit, “and my father, I knew, would never teach me. He thought that would protect me, but it only hurt.”

“He did not know his own father, so I’m told.” She shrugged, wrapping her hand over hers and securing his arm. “It could have been different for everyone, every life, Kolyat. I’ve found these differences to be. . . A nuisance.”

“How so?”

“It’s the ‘what if’ of ‘what could have happened or been’,” she said, turning them down a lacquered hall, bright and paneled, more men and women aliens moving through the doorways intersecting it. It was oddly out of custom to be walking in a corporation with such a militaristic aura, but Kolyat should have known better. _Panos_ had ever been suits and ties, pants and gloves, not uniforms, not caps. This was an armada of past and present Alliance soldiers, among them aliens from the Union, and Braith’s trusted. He pondered her adoption of Casnar into the fold. “I want to go back in time and change things, Kolyat. I want to fix what I now know.”

“I want to help you with that.” He looked at her, saw her gazing into his eyes, wondering if it was like the way she gazed into his father’s when they lay with each other. He could imagine holding her under him, watching her come, eyes open, mouth parted, throat swallowing air. _Okay, stop that._ He blinked and looked forward, skin feeling hot. Why did a human woman make him feel so aroused?

“Braith,” he went on to distract himself from those thoughts, “my father mentioned Casnar, my uncle, is trying to take hold of the company. Is it true? You just let him in?”

“He offered something that’s being tested as we speak, Kolyat,” she confided, not ashamed to tell him. “As chief executive, I’m allowed to make the decisions, and the durril sounded too good to pass up. If we can use it and replace the Eezo cores, it will put the _navarre_ over the top of all our competitors. The access to a fuel that supposedly is hoarded by your uncle’s family.”

“The Soterios have mined it for centuries,” Kolyat said. “They will have vast quantities that they sell only on Rakhana. But you will have to send ships to collect it. And the Attican Traverse is still highly pirated. No one knows about the durril yet.”

“I know. Which is why we’re going to take _all_ of it if my specialists prove it out. You’ll be taking the first test trip on a batch your uncle will have delivered. For now, I need you to bond with your new crew until he arrives.”

“Casnar’s coming?”

“Just to drop off the durril.” She glanced at the omnitool on her arm. “I should check my messages, see if Miranda and Mordin proved out. Here we are,” she said, looking up at a sign over a doorway.

_CABAL DORM_

The door slid open, and Kolyat and Braith both were greeted by ten visible individuals working under a large starship with freight and artillery being boarded. Kolyat tried not to gape at the ship.

“How does it get out of here?”

“The floor drops and beneath are tunnels that lead out to the barend. You’ll be shown everything. Just let the pilot do the work and don’t try to fly his ship.” She stepped forward, releasing his arm, and holding her fingers together, surveyed her crew of Cabal.

“Heads up, everyone!” she snapped. “Captain on deck. Come greet your new head of ship and don’t piss me off by giving me lip about hiring the son of Thane.”

Garrus popped his head up from behind a bin and swandered over with a casual glance at the others leaving the ship to come down the ramp and see the new stranger.

“You serious? This kid’s Thane’s son? They’re different colors.”

“Kolyat, this is Garrus Vakarian. Old friend of mine. You have any questions, you can pretty much rely on him to have a straight answer.”

“Nice to meet you,” Kolyat said, extending his hand.

The Turian grasped it in three claws and shook hard. Kolyat noticed the scar consuming half his face. “We’ll see if the legend lives on. Heard you worked for _Panos_ column on the Citadel.”

“You’re well informed,” Kolyat replied, clasping his hands together in a pose familiar to his father’s.

“Yeah, C-Sec left them alone. They did some decent work, and I enjoyed hearing tips from them on incidents going down or about to, back when I was an agent.”

“For C-Sec? I know _Panos_ had liaisons, but I’m surprised they were Turian. _Panos_ didn’t normally work with Turians, being Drell and all.”

“Yeah, but Cliffmor always had a soft spot for Turian females, especially my sister. She visited once from Palaven while I was meeting with him. Never seen a Drell more smitten with a non-dietary compliant species.”

“Oh. I remember Cliffmor. Yeah,” Kolyat chuckled, rubbing his scalp, “he was kind of an odd duck.”

Garrus rumbled with a deep inner laughter.


	14. Chapter 14

Casnar checked the redo on the upholstery. He sniffed, testing for any leftover residuals, and aside from new leather and the smell of runner grease, polish, and fabricants, he detected nothing else.

“Good work,” he mumbled, straightening up to see Hilaeira walking into the garage of the dealership with a pack of orders for parts. He grinned mischievously and sauntered over, hoping to catch her offguard.

“Why, hello, Hilaeira!”

The drellahna jumped in her overalls, looking surprised and shy suddenly.

“Hey, you’re Kolyat’s friend.”

“Uncle,” he corrected and leaned on a table full of unopened boxes containing various tools and supplies for the skyrunners lining both sides of the dealerships reupholstery division. He looked down at Hilaeira’s coveralls and grinned. “Cute. You actually look good in dirt and those things they call ‘dungarees’ by human definition.”

She raised her lips in a smile. “I do make grease look good.”

He hummed in agreement.

“You seen Tiran lately?” she asked. “You’re cousins, right?”

“Nonrelated, but connected, yes.” He pursed his lips up. “I haven’t seen him since yesterday morning. Why do you ask?”

“I kind of been thinking on something he asked me the other day and was just wondering if you knew he’d be around the café.”

“I could possibly arrange something for the two of you. . . Maybe the three of us, if you wish.” His grin spread, Casnar scratching the side of his patak and dropping his hand to play with the button above her left strap. “Needs a polish,” he said, removing his finger away and checking her tebris for a response.

She flushed, which was a good sign. It meant he aroused her. Casnar hummed, adding in a little vibration from his throat to thread into the tune.

“I would like that, but I’ve got a lot of work to do,” she said, backing away to meet with the manager who had come out pushing a tray of boxes he supposed were meant for her. Casnar looked away, exhaling through his nose, and began to walk back to his skyrunner, twirling a set of fobs and stuffing his pants’ pocket with his yellow hand.

Hilaeira looked up at the manager as the salarian gazed between Casnar and she.

“He a friend of yours?”

“More like an acquaintance through a friend,” she replied, casting a glance at Casnar’s ass as he walked away without saying goodbye.

“He’s a bit of a playboy. Watch out and don’t get too close. His last upholstering job was nasty.”

“Really?” Hilaeira scrunched her patak at the manager. The salarian gave her a half smile and nodded with his brown amber eyes narrowed slightly.

“Wouldn’t be the first time either. Drell venom and lubricants are nearly impossible to get out. Costs six grand in credits, and since he’s been living here in Lothairaxl, we’ve seen him at least a dozen times for the same reupholstering to his back seats. Doesn’t seem to like to do anything in the front.”

“Gross.”

The salarian chuckled, penning some ink onto a form and passing this to Hilaeira’s hand. He grinned and offered her the tray to transport the supplies out to her waiting skyrunner from her boss on loan for the trip.

“You need any help with that, just let me know.”

“Thanks, Guro.” She signed the bottom of the sheets, looking up over her pen at Casnar driving the flashy black skyrunner out through the middle of the garage. She wondered where he got all his money from.

“Braith Shepard, please.”

Casnar pulled up to the line before the entrance to the lower garage of Nolyn Tower and waited for security to call in and check with the chief, if she was expecting anyone.

“Braith here,” her voice could be heard on the blast of the security line.

“Hi, Commander, I have a drell here who wants to meet with you.”

“Is he yellow with a big ego?”

“Ah. . .” The security guard, a small, stocky man with a shock of blond hair over brown, looked at the Drell chuckling and shaking his head in the skyrunner.

“If his name is Casnar and he can show two forms of ID, send him in, Charles.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The gentleman looked at Casnar expectantly.

Casnar rolled his eyes and passed out his planetary visa and Lothairaxl registration card, plus the one for Ayr Heights and let the guard scan it before waving him in.

“I’ll have you know that I offered not two but three forms of ID to your little security clan outside the garage, Commander.” Casnar walked alongside Braith Shepard as she navigated him through the halls of Nolyn Tower, moving to the labs between the center of the building. She easily deflected his advance on her, a sweeping kiss of her hand that threatened to move too close to her wrist, and as Thane had warned her not to let him get too close, she kept a distance of at least three feet afterwards. Which was not hard to do, given that Nolyn had very wide halls and lots of room for them to move between.

Braith showed him to Labs A through Z, 1 through 10, identifying to him the number of Reaper paraphernalia that had been obtained and were used for advancing research on AI reconstruction.

“I just have to make sure we keep to the grid of rules set forth by the GU, and make sure we don’t actually create anything using Reaper technology or, well, the adverse of the Geth. I think you will be glad to know we are keeping things legal with the research, and your investment in us will go soundly.”

“So you aren’t cutting corners, Commander?” He stopped, putting a hand up in front of her.

Braith considered the smooth stare he was giving her, trying to determine what he wanted to know today. Playing with the devil was different when it was organic. Reapers had a tendency to go for the throat. Humans, salarians, asari, krogan, drell, anything on two legs and sometimes four had subtle, oblique angles by which to stab their victims.

“I aim to play by the books, Casnar. We take every day as it comes, every new regulation to heart, and we maneuver how we can.”

He stepped around her, peering into one of the glass labs where humans and turians were working together on a new dischargement array meant for the Keepers. He asked about it.

“What is that for.”

“I. . . Hoped you would notice this. It’s a design for a multitude of projectiles we hope to use on one of those beings repairing the Citadel and other relays. Some of the Keepers are larger than others. Formidable. I intend to have my crews prepared accordingly and readily with the proper weapons and strategy necessary to take them down without sacrificing safety.”

“Is it safe for the Keeper?”

“Have you ever seen a Charon Relay Keeper?” She smiled at him. Casnar settled his eyes on her face, moving away from the glass to come closer. She naturally turned and started walking ahead. “The Keepers are dangerous when it comes to salvaging from the broken stations. They are very territorial and very fast compared to what we know on the Citadel, and even those have gone through. . . Mutations.”

“Mutations. . . How so?” He stopped her this time with his hand firmly on her shoulder.

Braith turned her eye at it, then her body to face him. Casnar stepped closer and removed his hand.

“This little cat and mouse game is tedious, Commander.” He grinned. “I assure you, I do not intend to do anything to you that would cross the line of our professional relationship. . . I wish to preserve Nolyn Enterprises as much as you do.” He offered his hand to the glass labs either side of them and leaned forward. “What do you think I would do? Bend you over and take you here in front of all these men and women?”

Braith laughed, more out of shock than humor. She stepped back and carried on, turning to walk down the corridor with the back of her neck prickling.

“I’m going to make like I didn’t hear that comment,” she curtly replied and went on. “As for the mutations, we are dealing with far stronger, larger, ferocious entities that want nothing more than to be left alone to their design. They wish to rebuild the relays, fine, but I need to know what’s changing so we don’t have those relays open up and something operate from a closed Pandora’s Box.”

“You think there are similar designs to the Reapers that attacked us before you recreated the code.”

“Casnar, you nailed it on the head.”

“Show me to your office, Commander, and speak privily with me.”

Braith stopped and turned, gauging his intentions.

“I don’t think that’s wise, Casnar.”

“It is if you want those twenty million credits. We have to sign paperwork anyway. How is Kolyat by the way? And were your scientists successful in pleasing themselves with the quality of the durril?”

She led him to an elevator meant for freight and scanned her card, waiting along with him as it descended to their level.

“I appreciate your offer to extend us the generous amount of credits, Casnar, but know that I won’t let it buy anything more than 6% of the company, with the durril trade monopoly and possibly an acronym next to your name. Nothing else. Not even me.”

He followed her into the freight lift, noting the curtains protecting the walls from cargo rolling and stopping against it. He took her hair and sniffed it.

“I get all that I need by smelling him on you, Commander.” He looked meaningfully at her. “I think you are attractive. Don’t get me wrong. I would fuck you in a heartbeat if you were some petty thing at a bar. But you are Commander Shepard, Chief of Nolyn, and my future business partner. Rather than ram my cock down your throat, I much prefer to see you work for me than I for you.”

Her chest rose and fell against her shirt. Casnar put his hand down next to her crotch, but made no move to touch her.

“I like a woman in control of her proprieties. It makes things. . . Interesting.”

He left his hand there, letting her feel his warmth, but not touching. _No, no, can’t have that now can we, Commander._ His green eyes said this to her and he leaned forward and spoke. “Tell me how my nephew is doing first day on the job.”

“Take your hand away.”

He did. Braith stiffened, lifting her chin and turning to the doors. She pressed the button for the upper level of her office. She willed her heart to fly down from its heights.

“Jesus fucking christ, Casnar. I’m trying to run a business relationship here, not let you fuck with me in a freight elevator. Maybe we should call the whole thing off.”

“But you won’t.” He examined his nails and picked at a scuff. “Durril is too promising, too much potential, too powerful. You have one way to get it, and that’s me.”

“I presume you have rights to distributing it per the family’s contract?”

“I am executor for my family’s estate. My father and mother are old now and wish for me to handle the business affairs. Investment must go on for us to recover our share of providing for all of the refugees living with us during the war.” He smiled at her with a Cheshire grin. “You would like to be a part of those investments, wouldn’t you, Shepard?” He lowered his face, putting his hands in his pockets, spreading her apart with his eyes. “Exclusive to your _navarre_. . .”

“You’ll sign an NDA, a noncompete agreement, and exclusive rights to the durril on Soterios estate.”

“I will, though the rights are mine, and only through me will you have access to them.”

Braith turned cautiously as the door opened on their floor. He saw the thinking behind her steel.

“Lead on, Commander.”

The office was wide and spacious, lofty and white. EDI, the droid, was already waiting with a tray of glassware filled with hot water and teabags. Braith picked up one, thanking EDI 2.0 as she walked by and smoothly took a sip without spilling the tea. Casnar picked up another glass, sniffed it, didn’t mind the scent and tasted the water. He licked his lips after and hummed, removing a small vial from his pocket and untapping the lid. He poured some of the contents of the silver blue mineral into his tea and stirred it with his small finger, waiting for Braith to turn from her desk before poking his finger in his mouth to taste the tea with its added sweetness.

“What would you say to Kolyat if he knew what you were trying to pull?” Braith asked, swinging the teabag out and splattering some drops on the table surface of her desk.

Casnar frowned at her mess and strode over, setting his tea down and picking out a handkerchief from his suit’s breast pocket. He fastidiously cleaned up the drops and looked at her, seeing her smile.

 _Looks like we found a weak spot._ “EDI, please take the handkerchief of Sere Soterios for a fast dry cleaning. I wouldn’t want our newfound business relationship to be off on the wrong foot because of a few teadrops on his new desk.”

Casnar looked at the white desk and grimaced. “You know what this desk needs?”

“A fuck?”

He grinned at her. “I see you are learning to play the game with me, Commander.” He imagined laying her on that desk with her heels up in the air and redecorating her the way he preferred. “You still haven’t answered my question about Kolyat’s first day. Or morning.” He handed his handkerchief to the waiting droid, and was glad when it was gone.

“Kolyat’s doing well. He’s getting to know his crew, and they are already familiar with his father so everyone’s curious.”

“Kolyat did very well at _Panos_ , but working alongside drell has its merits and limitations. Humans and aliens-else are all different. I will be interested in his progress.” He leaned on the table, picking up his tea and looking at her in the red shirt. “How about the durril?”

“Miranda and Mordin are happy with it. I thank you for delivering the store of it to be used on Kolyat’s ship.”

“You intend to have my nephew test it, without all of your mark of approvals?”

“I wouldn’t put Kolyat in danger, and neither would you.”

He sipped his tea, eyeing the lovely grey of her eyes.

“Very good, Commander. Where is this paperwork I’m to sign.”

She thought about how the majority of his questions were statements, demands, expedient and expecting of an instantaneous response. Braith moved to the other side of the desk as he sat his left hip on it, leaning over, carefully balancing the tea above his lap. She glanced up at him as she drew out two tablets from the drawers and moved one to his side of the table, sitting down to take her seat and open the screen of hers.

“Isn’t this my desk?” he asked, tapping the white varnish.

“Have you signed the paperwork yet?” she asked back, blinking prettily at him.

Casnar chuckled and tapped the screen, activating his tablet to a long list of fine print. He scowled.

“Enough lawyer talk in this to make a drell go blind. Thank goodness for memory.” He scanned the lists, taking mental snapshots as he went. He flicked quickly through several screens, remarking on the arbitration clause as scandalous if it had to be offplanet, away from prying eyes.

“It’s so Port Mother doesn’t try to think they can even get involved.”

Casnar raised his eye ridge. “Port Mother. . . Lothairaxl’s government shipping authority. You two don’t get along?”

Braith folded her hands with her fingers. “Port Mother has always been trying to grow and usurp smaller companies to get a higher percentage from the trades ongoing. They’re a substantial enemy, with interests only in skimming off the top and cutting out from underneath. If anything happens to me, Port Mother should be looked into first.”

“Is that so.”

He signed, tapping his signature where indicated after reading each and every term. He rebuffed the six percent ownership and pushed to ten.

“Seven.”

“Eight.”

Braith shook her head, staring at him. “You don’t care about the company, Casnar. You’re so filthy rich, we’re just a picking to you. Why do you want to press this.”

“For show, but I would like ten percent. If not that, then a picture of you naked could easily make its way onto the Net.”

“You know how many digital renderings there are of me already?”

Casnar smiled and nodded. “I especially like the version with you wearing glasses. It’s very naughty in a prudy type of way.”

“Casnar, really. Am I going to have to go through with this every day with you?”

“No,” he sniffed, taking a sip of his tea. He closed his eyes and felt the buzz of the durril. “No, Commander. You will only have to suffer me and what you cannot have.”

“I have everything I need. In Thane.”

He looked at her, then tapped the last signature, signing away his right to ever buy control of the company through purchasing stocks out of the rest of her employees. Braith had played her cards right, and crossed her legs under the table, leaning back as she moved her tablet and his into the drawer. Casnar stood up and walked around to her side, looking down his nose at her. His suit was dark ash today. He had a high collar, round and buttoned, hiding his tebris, though the violet folds could be seen under his jaw and along his cheeks. He challenged her.

“Get out of my chair, Commander.”

She stood up and walked around him, Casnar closing his eyes as he inhaled her passing. Though he had spoken rudely, Braith had a small grin on her face. She knew he hated the desk, hated that she had spilled on it, hated that she had warmed it with her heat, and hated the fact he couldn’t have her.

But he would have her company.

“Commander.”

“Soterios.”

She stopped and gazed expectantly at him from the middle of his new office.

“Come dine with me tonight in the pavilion. I shall need company of a beautiful woman I choose to admire like a painting, never to be touched, because it would only ruin her.”

“Soterios, I have a dinner with my future husband, and every dinner will include him.” She smiled and walked out, joining the blue haired droid who approached with a steam pressed handkerchief belonging to him. Casnar watched Braith pick it up and drop it on the floor, her black heels walking away to the vert lift with EDI.

_Fuck, the woman has me made._

He drank all his tea, grinning from ear to ear.

Braith stepped into the vert lift and looked at the droid entering to stand next to her.

“You get all that EDI?”

“Yes, Commander.”

“Good.”

Braith stood as stoically as she could muster. The talk, the pressure, the war of power back and forth in that room, in the elevator, from the night before, was wearing her thin. She needed to relax and blow off some steam, and hoped Thane would be back within the week, safe and sound to her arms.

Casnar flicked open his comm and dialed a number.

“Give me Lothairaxl port authority. I wish to have a discussion with the head delegator. Thank you.”

He picked up the handkerchief she had dropped on the floor and lifted it to his lips. He inhaled it, catching a hint of her perfume from where her fingers had touched it, and carried it back into the office where he already had a catalogue out for new office furniture.


	15. Chapter 15

“Braith, talk dirty to me.”

“Thane, I am not doing that over comm lines for Lothairaxl. How is it out there?”

“Tiring. Watching these salvage pirates trying to board the relay is akin to watching a bad play. Every time, the Keeper wins, the outcome’s expected, and for the love of. . . Why don’t they just stop?”

He heard her lilting laughter on the other line.

“Did Kolyat do well today?”

“Crew likes him. Kolyat reminds me of you sometimes with your mannerisms. I see a lot of similarities, in fact.”

“Hmm. And did Casnar come by?”

“Yes.”

“You sound displeased.”

“He’s a tough one.”

“Would you like to talk about it?”

“I got it. . . I just wish you were home tonight.”

“I’m only doing what you requested I do.”

“It’s necessary. We need an eye on those relays, and Miranda got the syringes for the gun we need. You and Feron better be careful.”

“I can’t believe you let him talk me into this, but I understand why we have to do it.”

“You use the weapons Kolyat delivers to you. Everyone’s on standby. I can’t have anyone getting hurt, so if it looks volatile, get the hell out of there. I don’t want to be stuck running the _navarre_ with Casnar breathing down my neck and Port trying to screw us over.”

Thane fretted. He looked at their picture together in his bunk aboard the AM1.

“You sure you don’t want me to come back tonight? I could make it in time before morning.”

“I’m fine, Thane.”

“You just sound. . . Stretched.”

Braith tapped her fingers on the table by her bed, legs up behind her as she thought of him holding her.

“I’ll be okay. Tomorrow morning’s a-coming, and I have a meeting with a few local dispatchers hoping for a contract. I’ll talk to you later?”

“Of course, Braith. . . I love you. Goodnight.”

“I love you too.”

The line clicked, and comms went silent.

Braith walked alone into her kitchen and pulled out a glass of water. She drank, eyeing the time above the stove. 1300. It was time for Thane to sleep over at Charon. Braith had come home early to prepare some paperwork for her meetings the next day, and she wanted to be out of the building, away from Casnar, away from everything. She went to her dining room table and picked through her schematics. _Enhanced Defense Initiative. It will work,_ she determined to herself. Braith sat down and crunched out numbers, guessing it would take her an hour to write up the proposal and send in to the GU. Once they had the Keeper, more could be outputted, but until then, she would have to define her parameters for this next strategy for in case the relays opened and another Reaper horde came out. She hated being a pessimist, but this was what the GU kept her around for.

To plan for the world to end again.


	16. Chapter 16

Casnar took a look through the next page of financials and grimaced. _With what Nolyn was procuring from the Attican Traverse, there should be twice as many entries and not these pitiful numbers,_ he thought. More than once he saw a red line and deciphered that as negative. It did not please him, so he took to the vert lift and ascended to the upper offices in which the company’s billing was located.

Out from the lift he went, into the first set of glass doors, his big leather shoes making a presence across the decorative tiles.

“I want to talk to the person called Samantha Traynor,” he demanded to the surprised looks of the assembled men and women moving to and fro from their desks.

A petite brunette came over uncertainly with wide brown eyes and peered up at him through a curve of hair.

“Traynor, sir. You would be?”

“I am Braith’s new aide in the building and I am here to handle something for her.” He grinned and handed her a tablet. “Can you tell me why we are losing so much money at this particular site? T5103? There’s at least half a million credits being funneled into a black hole there.”

“Let me see.” Traynor wrinkled her brow while Casnar waited. She studied the screen, removing it from her hands. Her eyelids blinked, covering the wide orifices. “This is a heavily pirated territory. We have lost a few ships there, so that gets taken out of the commission. Our costs to replace the security are substantial. Without T5103’s exports, however, we wouldn’t be making a single credit on it.”

She handed it back to the drell and folded her hands together, waiting.

“I want to know what routes they are taking out there. The _navarre_ may be able to bypass the attack sites simply with a change in direction. What is the terrain, so to speak?”

“Conditions in that area are hazardous. Much debris floats around T5103 and its surrounding planets. There were formerly raw material processing sites that the Reapers took out to disrupt our manufacturing. Since then, T5103 has moved up and been able to produce more in regards to current manufacturing rates than, say, Tusya, which is the next system over.”

“What is that. . . Kepler?”

“Yes.”

Casnar thanked her, turned, and walked out, the women and some of the men in the office watching his backside as he left. Samantha Traynor turned around and looked at everyone, quickly setting all the stares back down to their desks.

Braith massaged her temple and placed two cucumber slices on her eyes, trying to remove the headache and age she was feeling after writing for two hours. It didn’t have to take that long, but she was into the first draft and realizing there was more she wanted to expound on with regard to the Keepers and possibly, possibly, possibly sneaking in some scandalous suggestions about reforming an AI to handle the relays when these reopened. It would be acknowledging that something else had been learned through her talk with the Reaper AI, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to take that route yet.

The comm clicked on and suddenly Casnar’s voice filled her bedroom.

“Shepard, where are you. I’ve been up and down this damn tower and I can’t find your scent anywhere.”

“How the fuck did you just call and pick up my receiver end?”

“Braith, get your ass back to the tower immediately and come to my office. We need to talk about Lothairaxl _and_ we need to discuss why you’re losing so many credits over at T5103.”

“I am in the middle of a break. I have a GU meeting to prepare for and I have three dispatchers with quarterlies to review. What do you need?”

“Either you come back here or I come over there, and you don’t want me near a bed with you.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“No, but I knew it would piss you off and inwardly you’d hate yourself because I was teasing you.”

Braith fumed. “Casnar, I am chief of this company. You are a shareholder with an office and have nothing else to do. Go back to your tower or do what it is to bide your time _without_ harrangling mine.”

“Fine, but if I pick up courtesans on Ve Boulevarde, I’m adding them to your expense account.”

She got up, put the cucumbers in the sink, and went to work.

At the tower, she found Casnar perched on a window in the upper level of the rectory, provided for her employees who still believed in a god. She stalked over to him, a feline with its hair raised and claws clicking on the white tiles. He looked up from a vidmag and grinned.

“Who is this.”

She stopped, grey eyes flicking down to the magazine. A picture of a dark haired man with a sleek swept coif gazed back smugly. He was in Alliance regalia.

“That is Kaidan Alenko. He is owner of the 6th Fleet _navarre_. An old friend and sometimes we do business together. Why?”

“I want to meet him.”

“What for?”

“We need an alternate route through the Traveon Stream, the one you use to reach T5103. I hear you lose a lot of ships to pirates out there.”

Braith calmed, looking at him with a raised eyebrow. “True,” she said, putting her hand on her hip, “it’s a sore spot. Aria T’Loak has a syndicate out there that she denies funding, but they have been targeting my lines. What did you have in mind?”

“Dinner, tonight, 6, the Pavilion.”

“No. I told you—“

“You lied, and it was stupid to.” He unhinged himself from the corner of the window and swayed over to her, a triumphant look in his eyes. Braith folded her arms across her shirt and tilted her face, looking up through her eyebrows at him. He tapped her shirt with his vidmag. “I’m very good at finding out what I want to know. Lie to me all you want if it pleases you to deceive yourself. It only tells me that I am superior to you, and you are afraid of me. One day, Braith, I may take over this company from you, six percent I have notwithstanding.” He threatened her, then smiled to placate her. “You are fortunate that I like to make money. I also want to keep you around working for me.”

“And your little six percent.”

“If that’s a clever way of insulting my masculinity, add three.”


	17. Chapter 17

The lights turned green. Kaidan took two turns and made the skyrunner move up and down past traffic, several local delivery drivers, and three security cruisers. He glanced at the incident laying strewn across Metro Street and there were several scarved bodies being moved out of a red skyrunner having crumpled into the corner of a metal building rising up on a precarious curve. He shook his head and sighed at the sight.

“That’s too bad,” he said aloud to himself, coasting downwards and bringing the runner to a stop in front of The Pavilion on Eighty Street. _Damn, this place is nice_ , he thought, getting out of the vessel and looking up at the sign with all of its fixed glass, ritzy lights, and ambience pervading from the speakers and more. He tightened his cuffs, rolling these up, and walked into the restaurant.

Down by the corner of a staircase, he saw a yellow drell talking with a waitress and looking quite comfortable leaning over her. It was just another asari, but he could tell by the look in her eyes, they were flirting and the drell even put his hand on her, and she let him.

But the asari walked away, the drell gazing after, and turned disappearing under the staircase Kaidan was coming down.

The theatre below was filled with a stage and tables, candlelights burning with molecular energy from glass bulbs. The heart of Lothairaxl pumped on a strange source of light that lit everything in the city. Candles were unnecessary. No one knew how long Lothairaxl had existed, only that it had always been a welcome beacon and open to being operated. Engineers worked beneath the city to explore her inner workings and channel the glowing lights to wherever they were needed. The light helped fuel and run the city, the grids for the skyrunners, the pumping channels of water, heat and cool for food and shelter. And though it was remarkable for its visitors and residents, it was useful, too, for that which lived far below the streets.

Kaidan came to the bottom of the stairs and turned in the direction the drell had gone, looking for his marked table, which would glow his name above per his reservation. He was a little apprehensive. He hadn’t known who had invited him, but by the fancy invitation, he’d been intrigued. So he’d taken his ride to The Pavilion, and here he was, about to find out who had honored him with such a nice card and fine establishment.

Braith Shepard was only too relieved to see that the invitation listed _The Pavilion_ and not Casnar’s address. She stepped out of the limo that had been ordered to her tower and surprised her when she’d gone out to the street to take the ride to the restaurant, assuming to drive herself as she did anywhere. But the driver, an elegant turian, opened the door and bid her Casnar sent her his regards. She shook her head and got in, wearing red shoes, a fringe around the bottom of her skirt, sheer stockings, and a short coat of brown leather above the one piece in orange. Thane’s necklace hung around her neck, light and comfortable in the silk stitchings overlapping the front of her breasts. She revealed no skin besides her neck and face, her hands, and what could be seen through the silk along her legs. And a scarf she brought with her in hand.

Kaidan sat down in the restaurant and looked about, wondering who his guests were. He saw the drell again, and in the dim lighting, could see he was very tall, very broad, and more of a bouncer than a businessman. But he was dressed in fine silks, his suit moving smoothly, unhindered over his legs, and he had a thick belt gleaming from the overheads, muted in mauves and blues. The color of his suit and pants were black in the light, and he wore a red collar underneath the lapels that rose up and clasped with a unique black button.

“Casnar Soterios, Nolyn Enterprises,” the drell said as he stopped at Kaidan’s table, who rose to greet him when he realized the drell was intent on him.

“Kaidan Alenko, 6th Fleet. Are you with Braith?” he asked hopefully.

“Not yet, but I will be,” Casnar replied, sitting down and settling back to cross his knees.

Kaidan sat and waited.

“I’ve invited the Chief of Nolyn, and she should be arriving shortly. While I have you here to my full attention, I would like to start by saying good work on 6th Fleet countering batarian oversight in Hahn region. The news did a fine job of exploiting the coverage and making the leftover batarians seem unorganized and _distilled_.”

“They’re a tough group, not without their aggressors,” Kaidan said, lacing his fingers together in his lap. “I hate that we have to fight them. They could be very helpful if they weren’t thinking of rising and creating a new hegemony with what was left after the war. I don’t like killing people.”

“Even if their intent is to steal, pillage, and rape?”

“That’s the reason why I’m killing them. In any case, is this about batarians or something else?” Kaidan sat forward, taking a menu and perusing the wines.

“I’ve already ordered for everyone. You’ll be pleased, so focus your attention.”

Kaidan blinked and stared at Casnar.

“Okay. . . What have you got?”

“I have an alliance I’d wish to broker on behalf of Nolyn, combining both _navarres_ and what you own at the Port.”

“Oh. . . What do you mean?” Kaidan looked nervous.

Casnar leaned onto the table, putting both cuffed wrists down. “I am aware of your business relationship with a certain secretary, a Gianna Parasini. Very nice, by the way. I understand she is helping Lothairaxl Port Security Barend attempt to combine several _navarres_ in order to compete with Nolyn and put pressure on Braith Shepard.”

“Now, wait, Braith and I go far back. I would never—“

“I understand you weren’t aware, but I am. So now, you are going to protect my interests, which is Nolyn Enterprises, is Braith Shepard, among others. You will offer Braith an agreement in which 6th Fleet will support Nolyn’s _navarre_ ships when they go to the Traveon Stream, until they can devise an alternate route to a planet called T5103.”

“I understand they’re having trouble out there,” Kaidan said, sitting back as cool as could be.

“Yes. And it hurts the black line at the bottom of the books. So. . .”

The asari waitress Kaidan had seen talking with Casnar, came by with a tray of hors d’oeuvres and dark wine. She added two slips of paper, removed these from the food, and two more, which she removed from the glasses and held out separately for Kaidan to see.

“Poison tests? Really?”

“One can never be too sure, Mr. Alenko,” Casnar said as he took a sip of his wine and looked up to the staircase, first to see the black hair and the steel eyes glowering down at him. He started to smile in a wide, welcoming grin. “Our lady of the hour.”

“Of all time,” Kaidan said, having turned to see, and recognizing Braith Shepard. “Wow, if looks could kill.”

“She does.”

Braith came down the steps, putting away her growl as she saw Casnar had invited Kaidan Alenko, and no doubt was scheming something. She knew it had to do with the transport to T5103, since they had talked about it, but he didn’t tell her just what he had in mind. She came down the steps as the lights went down, and the theatre stage glowed brighter, performers, singers, coming out. A background of melody came on.

Casnar and Kaidan stood, Alenko pulling out a chair for her. They shook hands, embraced, said quick, friendly words to one and other, and then Casnar was waiting.

“I see you’re wearing that lovely necklace your future husband has bestowed upon you. It doesn’t match the dress or your shoes, but it always serves well with your eyes,” he said as he lowered his head beside her ear. He chose not to touch her. Not even to shake her hand, but made sure he was close enough for her, and Kaidan, to feel uncomfortable. “It will always match your hair, so I guess the slight is forgivable.” He leaned away, considering her.

Braith rolled her eyes and turned, making sure to knock him with her shoulder, but Casnar caught the jacket by a loop and began to slide it over her arms. Braith’s teeth grilled together in a smile at Kaidan as she tried hard not to look repulsed and incensed that Casnar had the audacity to touch her coat in front of another man who wasn’t Thane. And now he could have that little victory of controlling her next behavior, which was to put on a smile, show grace and dignity at letting a drell not her own remove an article of clothing while breathing hotly on her skin.

Casnar gave off a small hum, a pleasant smile as he helped her remove her hands from the sleeves, the tint of her skin, soaps, conditioners, and perfume strengthening in her clothes and skin’s reveal.

“Kaidan, how’s the 6th Fleet?” Braith cut into conversation immediately as Casnar hooked her coat to a vestibule nearby and came back to seat himself across from her. Three at the table, forming a close triangle.

“It’s been doing well. We’ve been doing a lot of fighting, more than I’d like to say,” he said, waving his fingers, “but we’re making profit and thinking that an alliance is in store for our next step in handling the Traverse.”

“Oh, really.” She didn’t look at Casnar. “Alliance with? Whom?”

“Actually, 6th Fleet and Nolyn Enterprises. Just to consider,” he said apologetically, also avoiding Casnar, who was enjoying his wine and hadn’t touched any food being laid down at their table by several waiters and waitresses.

Braith was shocked. She looked at Casnar.

“You’ve already talked to him. Did you even. . .” She restrained herself, straightening up and seeking refuge in the lights of the stage. _The gall that this drell has to be making business deals on behalf of Nolyn with only 6%, though he has the durril. . . Shit, that means I will have to share it with 6th Fleet. Bastard knows what he’s doing, making an inner market with select companies under the guise of mutual liaisons and ventures jointly. Son of a bitch. Who else is he going to try and swallow._ “Casnar, have you tried your wine?” she asked, picking up a glass she assumed was sharing the same spirit and sipping it. She spit the wine back in after swishing, and looked at Casnar who had an evil grin and a slit in his eyes. “I’ve had better.”

Casnar set his glass down and raised his conjoined fingers. The asari waitress came over with not one, two, but three new bottles of vintage wine, which she set down with new glasses. Kaidan’s dark eyebrows raised.

“We have all the time to set things right, Commander.”

Braith leaned back in her chair, accepting another glass that the asari poured.

A little after half an hour, Kaidan and Braith were dancing, friends, on the parquet floor among other couples and talking quietly. Casnar was missing from the table, having gone off after listening, and indulging when he felt, into the conversation about business connections and plans ahead.

“So who is this guy? I thought _you_ had control of Nolyn?” Kaidan asked her.

“He’s Thane’s brother-in-law. Bought his way into the company. Nondisclosure agreement, so I can’t say more, but you will find out if we sign this deal tomorrow.”

“It would be nice to work with you again.” His hand felt warm on the scoop of her lower back. Kaidan’s eyes held an innocent shine.

Braith smiled. “Remember Eden Prime?”

“Hopefully it’s not as disastrous as that,” Kaidan chuckled, leaning away.

“Seems like a lifetime ago. I’m glad the war ended how it did, but, Kaidan, I don’t know. There’s something happening, and I can feel it in my gut.”

“Not like visions, right?” He looked concerned.

“No, it’s just. . . Professional instinct. I’ve got the _navarre_ to worry about, Thane wants to marry and have kids, GU expects me to present on a new initiative tomorrow, and I’ve got cruisers heading to Charon to pick up a Keeper that’s going to support my theory.”

“You’re not going to do it, are you?”

She nodded. “We need one. Has to happen.”

“What do you expect to get out of it? Are you just going to relocate it?”

“If one can be used at another relay, or even be released back at Charon, we could have something hooked up to it to observe what they’re doing and what’s going on behind the walls. See if the relay has opened. Charon’s already activating. It’s got defenses, it’s got barriers, it’s got missiles. Kaidan, the relays are arming themselves.”

“I’ve heard. We’ve been doing our own watching.” He held her tighter. “I agree with you. We all do. You know you have our support.”

“I know. At least I think I do. Which is why I’m pushing now while I have everyone’s attention and faith.”

“What did the Reaper AI say?”

She stilled in her movement, and looked away.

“It said we would need them. That it would be inevitable.”

“And you still destroyed them.”

“Everyone.”

“Do you ever think of EDI? Or Tali?”

“All the time.”

“And the Geth.”

“Yes.”

Braith sighed and rested her chin on Kaidan’s shoulder. They were close, no closer than friends, but Kaidan had ever been someone she could rely on, even when he had once disbelieved her.

Casnar interrupted with a clearance from his throat, having materialized beside them.

“Mr. Alenko, I’ve ordered you a ride. Your skyrunner will be towed along back to your building. We hope to see you tomorrow?”

“Yes,” Kaidan said, suddenly unsure and surprised by the development. But Casnar wouldn’t leave until Kaidan said goodbye, and even escorted him, leaving Braith alone on the dance floor. She went to the table, sat, and thought. Casnar was long to return, and as the music picked up again, Braith checked the time and prepared to leave.

“Not going yet, are you.”

“Oh, Casnar, no. I’m leaving. I’m fine with how things turned out tonight, but I hate that you went behind my back and contacted 6th Fleet to make a business arrangement without consulting me first. You are not the Chief of Nolyn. The _navarre_ will not respond to you.”

“But you will.” He scooped up her chin with a swipe of his fingers. “I only need you. Now accompany me. I would like a dance.”

He didn’t give her a chance to argue, only held her wrist and walked backwards, beckoning her onto the dance floor. Braith was unaccustomed to showing lack of dignity in her new role, so she went, with grace, and let him hold her hand, and place his palm on her waist.

“I know you didn’t like that. You hate it when I touch you, never mind remove your clothes,” he said, forcing her to think of how uncomfortable she had been when he took her coat off without her permission.

“Casnar, you really walk a fine line.”

“I realize this, but I’m very good at tightrope-walking, I believe is the phrase.” He hummed at the heat of her body under his hand. “I do it often and like to keep up with the practice. Don’t you, Commander, like to practice?”

“You knew Kaidan would say yes. What did you know that you held over his head?”

“Very direct, Commander. Kaidan has a relationship with a woman at the barend. She works for Port Mother. As they say, Commander, keep your friends close,” he tugged her against his throb, staring into her eyes, “and your enemies closer.”

Braith knew it was time to leave. She slipped her hand out of his and went to the table to grab her things, put on her coat, and ascend the stairs. Casnar watched her leave for a few seconds, then stormed after her.

Outside on the street, Braith entered the waiting limo, but the driver wouldn’t leave.

“Take me back to my tower. I’m done here tonight.”

The turian looked to the window.

“Sorry, ma’am. We’re waiting for one more.”

Braith froze as a shadow fell over her window. The door opened.

“Move over.”

She sighed angrily and slid to the opposite seat. Casnar’s bulk sat in.

“Driver. Depart. Privacy, please.”

A tinted window shut them off from the front as Casnar closed the door, grabbed her knees, and with sudden, incredible strength, pulled her across the gap to him airily. She stuck out her hand, posting against his suit, his chest taut, hard with muscle like Thane, just as strong, perhaps stronger.

“I like it when you fear me, Commander,” Casnar said into her eyes, his hands like vicegrips around her knees. He had pulled her right into his lap from the other seat, so she was hard against him, against his fabric, rubbing between her legs. Braith huffed in little breaths, her eyes wide and dilated, excited and terrified. Casnar calmly looked on, inhaling her fear, tingling with pheromones, mouth loose, jaw wide and square. “I can smell your sex and this arouses you. It gives me no greater sense of pleasure than to know I can destroy you. How does it feel, Commander, to be so weak, so vulnerable, able to wither at the tip of my teeth. Shall we bite the apple?” He bared his smile, eyes looking heavy, lights flickering over his face and tebris on the sides.

She hadn’t spoken a word.

“Commander,” Casnar’s smile widened, “I believe you’ve lost your tongue. . . Was the wine really so bad?”

She tugged away, and he let her go. Sitting across the seat from him, she folded up her legs, and wrapped herself tighter in her coat.

“The more you insult and defy me, the more I want you. Do you understand? Insult me, Commander. Hit me. I will turn it into pleasure for you, unlike your wildest dreams.”

“You self-interested pig.”

“No, I am not some porcine mammal, though my heart hammers blood. I am drell, and you are. . . Very special to me.”

“Why are you doing this. Why are you doing this to me and Thane.”

“Because you took something away from me. And something away from her. This was to be my vengeance against Thane, but I like what I have found. I intend to keep it. And I know I can.”

Braith knocked on the window as Casnar crawled over to sit beside her.

“Asim is on my payroll. He will not respond to you.” He brushed her cheek with his finger, Braith flinching away. He caught her chin and turned her. “You may keep on playing as Commander, running your operation as you see fit, but where I intervene, you will not know unless I show you. . . But rest assured, Commander, I will protect you as much as Thane will, as much as your _navarre_ can, if not better.”


	18. Chapter 18

Braith wrenched away from him, scrambling to the other side of the seat and squeezing against the vessel wall. He did not pursue, but only with his eyes did he chase her.

“I tell Thane, you won’t see Kolyat again. Hell, you might even be dead.”

“That would be a shame, and an empty threat.” Casnar nestled back, watching her straighten out her legs to move towards the back seat by the door. He had her trapped, and it was arousing to watch her squirm. “You move well, Commander.”

“Stop calling me that. It’s mocking.”

“I know it is, but it’s what you deserve. A title. More than just a pussycat. You are a lioness, and you make more than a heart throb. How did you ever survive the early years of being a marine, what with you’re being so. . . Matable.”

“I kicked everyone’s ass who tried, and it’s not always brute strength and intimidation that wins, Casnar.”

“No, of course not. Sometimes it works. Other times, it does take cat and mouse.”

He turned his head and knocked dully on the glass. The window dropped an inch from the roof.

“Asim, please redirect course for the pools on Lothairaxl Gardens. I’m in need of air.”

“Casnar, please,” Braith begged from across the way, the window closing and the skyrunner shifting gears to turn left down a tunnel into the abyss of where she did not know.

Casnar’s face disappeared, and Braith felt consumed by darkness, feeling out for presence or an attack like in the caverns of Utukku. She willed her heart to stop, feeling more out of place in Lothairaxl than suddenly she ever had been. If it had not been for Kolyat. . . But that wasn’t fair. What had Thane brought on them?

She could hear humming. Casnar, singing his damn tune from the night before. It grew closer and closer until she could feel that threatening heat down between her legs as something hot coasted over her. She turned her face away, closing her eyes even though she couldn’t see anything. The rumbling. The rumbling built.

“You don’t tell me to go away.”

She almost jumped with his cheek beside her ear.

“Go away then.”

And he did. The heat was gone, but Braith was panting. She could hear the leather moving with someone’s weight across the limo. Then there was light, and Casnar was gazing out the window, disinterested, a strange look on his face as he gazed at the lights blowing by.

“Did I ever tell you Irikah liked to skate?” he suddenly said as the limo slowed, alighting on a stage leading out to several pools, some frozen solid by freezing coils underneath, others steaming, others lukewarm for late night splashing. A modulator above the Lothairaxl Gardens sifted real snow made from ice blocks, and others had petals and flowers hanging from pendant suspensions wreathing each separate pool, isolated by concrete and fine designed wiring, on which vines and more flowers clung like tapestries.

“I don’t think I’ve ever known you until yesterday, Casnar,” Braith said, rolling her eyes up.

Asim opened the door and Casnar shooed her out. He straightened with her, and nodded to the driver.

“Come with me, Braith.” He offered her an arm, and when she didn’t take it, he grabbed her wrist and dragged her with him. She looked back at the driver, Asim, who had turned back to enter the front of the limo.

“Casnar, what are you. . .”

He let her go and continued walking, sliding his hands into his pockets, lifting up his coat flaps as he entered behind one of the hanging gardens. Braith scanned about, and cautiously walked her heels after him. _Might as well see what this is about,_ she sighed to herself.

Casnar was in the pool, the surface covered over with ice, and he was scuffing about, moving flakes of frost with his hard-edged soles. He glanced up at her, and a boyish look was in his eyes. It redeemed him some, making him not so threatening.

“Irikah and I used to try and push each other down when it snowed on a lake that would freeze over by our compound in Nualavera. Strange weather when the pollution came in, but we didn’t care. It was fun to walk on ice and slide around on our feet. My father showed us something one day, and called them ‘ice skates’. He gave each of us a pair, said we could use them to glide across water. And we did.” He pushed off the edge of the basin and slid halfway across the ice. He looked to her and beckoned.

“I’m not doing that.”

He slid in a circle, flexing and angling his feet to push off his momentum. Braith had to smile, it was so comical, though she was wary.

“This was all I ever remembered her as,” Casnar said, holding his palms up as snow came down. “Something innocent, something fun, something, or someone, who would change things.”

“And she did, didn’t she,” Braith said.

Casnar looked at her, sliding to a stop, and his face darkened.

“She changed _everything_.”

The door to her room never felt so dangerous. Braith’s heart hammered as the door slid behind her. Casnar was not there. He had dropped her off and let her go up the fifty floors by herself, feeling alone, feeling used, feeling wanted, but dejecting herself with the thought Casnar was trying to get back at Thane for having brought evil upon Irikah and Kolyat.

She went into the shower, turned the water hot, scalding herself, but waiting for her skin to adjust rather than turning it cooler. She touched herself, and thought of the heat, the press of his cock against her crotch, and the way it _did_ turn her on. And guiltily, it excited her, shamed her. He was using her. He wasn’t doing anything, and yet he was.

She rubbed her fingers between her legs in the shower, rocking back against the tiles, and arching her neck as she excited and trembled. If he were watching. . . If he were watching. . . _What if he was?_ Could he see her? He seemed to see everything.

Guiltily, she withdrew her hand and bathed in soap and water again, trying to clean the sin off her skin of having done nothing and everything. She had let the devil in, herself, and it was like Thane had said, hard to remove once his claws were in the door.

She needed Thane badly just then. She needed him more than ever. Someone to take the need away. Someone to carve it out of her. She began to hyperventilate, controlling herself, fighting it.

“Fuck,” she said aloud, brushing her hair out. She needed to sleep. _No, I need to concentrate on something._ She had the GU presentation tomorrow. She could study that, write more, exorcise her demons by focusing on her work. Get Casnar out of her head, off her mind, off her skin, out of her mouth and away from her thoughts. She hadn’t touched him other than the dance and the few times he roughly handled her, but she’d resisted all the way. Had she? Had she done enough?

Durril. Credits. Money. Trade. He was treating her and Nolyn like a consort, a courtesan. _No, worse._ But he had also made to protect her. A deal with 6th Fleet was wise, and she had not thought of it, least that she could do it. Kaidan would have felt obligated if she’d asked, not that she hadn’t considered. Just the implementation never came to her. And Casnar was doing _his_ work, researching and finding limitations as well as means to surmounting these.

She picked up her omnitool and contacted Thane.

“Siha?” His voice questioning and full of concern.

“Thane, remember when you asked me to talk dirty to you. . .”


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [A/N] Trigger warnings. Body trauma. . . Suicide. . . Rape. . . Goes against my rules, but explicit it is. Story rating will update.

Casnar rolled the vial of durril back and forth between his hands. He wondered at why he hadn’t used it on her. He could have.

He tossed the vial into the waste basket and went to Asim. “Go to Ve Boulevarde and buy me the two most expensive courtesans for the night.”

“What if they’re ghastly, sere?”

“It’s not about looks,” Casnar snarled. “It’s because I can. Now go. And hurry back.”

“Yes, sir.”

Asim left the pavilion and went down the stairs in special non-slip socks. He entered the limo, changed his footwear, and lifted the limo, ascending to then drop and glide down towards the city streets of Lothairaxl.

Casnar didn’t know why he had shown Braith the Gardens, or why he had felt the need to share that about Irikah. He poured himself a glass of escanes and swirled it before drinking.

“It was all fun and games, until hearts got broken,” he sang, low and soft to himself, looking at the escanes, gazing up through the windows at the stars and moons not far. “All fun and games, until I fell.”

He drank the rest and went down the stairs into a glass menagerie filled with a bed and paintings of nudes on the wall, black on one side, masterpieces on the other. He stripped, taking off his clothes, smelling them, scenting her.

“All fun and games, until she was hurt.”

He stripped off his boots. Stripped off his belt. Took off his socks, underwear, and undershirt. He stepped in the shower, and lowered his hand as he rubbed his tebris, pumping soap into one fist and massaging with the other. Thinking of black hair, steel eyes, pale skin. A shivering mouth, wrapped around his. . .

Casnar hummed, and brought his mind back to what he wanted to do in the morning. Sleep in. Fuck his courtesans senseless, throw money at them, make them do whatever to each other, and send them home, back to their streets, back to whatever luxury he could buy them.

“All fun and games, until someone gets hurt.”

His eyes went to an image on a holo above his bath. A sacred drellahna one worshipped when back on Rakhana. Mithra Jonalyn, the goddess of loyalty and family. Casnar released himself and groaned, throwing back his head as the water sprayed down his chest. He needed a fuck, but he knew even with two courtesans, he would still feel famished. Braith Shepard. _There was a woman to beg for._

Toweling off, he threw on his robe and went to the glass steps leading up to his landing of liquor cabinet and the entrance. He poured himself two glasses, set them with durril from the waste basket, and waste not, want not, he stirred and set these aside for the courtesans Asim would return with.

Taking into account that he was hungry and feeling volatile, he tested his tebris with a stir of vibration and then turned on the music to listen to symphony playing something that would stir _him_ away from his thoughts of Braith Shepard trembling under his palms, resisting him, insulting him. It was depraved, he knew, but he would let that woman walk all over him. If she only knew how much he liked it. He had everything he could want, that he just couldn’t feel anymore. Not since Irikah died. And his parents were passing, aging on Rakhana. The day would come soon. And then there was Kolyat, returned to his father, working for Nolyn, happy. The boy was set. And Casnar felt empty and sadistic that evening. He looked at the glassware filled with escanes and durril, and in a rage, threw these to shatter against the thick glass wall. He grabbed two more, crushing them in his fingers, not caring that the slivers sliced through his skin. It felt good. It felt real. He wasn’t entirely empty.

Asim returned and opened the door, looking up to see the blood clearly visible through the glass, on the walls, handprints curved in fists. He fluttered his mandibles, looked at the courtesans through his window in back, oblivious and talking amongst themselves.

“Ladies, the sere is not feeling well tonight. I will take you home and pay your expenses for the time.”

Asim ignored the protests of the women, too stupid to realize he was saving their lives, and ascended to deliver them back to their boulevarde of sex and skin. He let them out, paid them tips, and shut the doors one by one before entering his and flying back to Casnar’s pavilion.

Once on the landing pad, he shuttled the limo aside, got out, put on the socks with grips, black to match his gear, and ascended the glass steps to Sere Soterios, who glared at him from the top.

“Where are the courtesans?” he demanded.

Asim shrugged his shoulders and opened his claws. “It’s been a busy night, sir. There was no one above five grand. It wouldn’t have been worth it, knowing your average.”

Casnar looked away. His hands were dripping blood. He swayed a little, and then collapsed.

“Sere!”

Asim was up the steps, trying to wake the drell. He tapped his patak gently, then slapped him hard.

“Sere!”

“Go away. Let me die.”

“Sere, we have to get you up and to a doctor. Your hands are bleeding. Your wrists, sir!”

He looked about, over the thick blood pooling, and sought out towels, even using the robe to help bind the cuts. He looked desperately, running into the glass house, up and down the stairs, and couldn’t find anything remotely close to stitching. He looked back at his master, propping himself up against the rail, blood staining and smearing everywhere.

“Tell Kolyat I left the estate in his name,” Casnar said, smiling.

Braith rolled out of bed, staring at the wall. She imagined she was hearing something, rapid knocking, beating, drums. _Goddamn it, what time is it? It must be 53 playing their goddamn musical band again! I’ll kill him!_ The drumming persisted, and she swung her feet out from the blankets, wearing a loose slip, white and sheer. She grabbed her robe, dark and black, and went to the door. The bedroom opened and she went out into the living room. The panel of her entrance was shaking. _Goddamn that computer,_ she thought, scared suddenly that maybe it was Thane and something had gone wrong. But that didn’t make sense. He was still in Charon. She’d only gotten off the comm with him a few hours ago, which had been pleasant, and he certainly wasn’t feeling bad about what she’d said to him. Neither was she for that matter. Braith opened the door to see a turian, Asim, in fact, in dark clothes, his uniform, barely holding up under Casnar, whose golden yellow scales were dripping in blood.

“Oh my fucking god! What happened to him!”

“He cut himself and fell,” Asim lied. “I can’t take him to the hospital. He was adamant I take him here if anywhere. He said you would know what to do better than any surgeon.”

“Fuck! Get him in here! Onto the island!” They helped carry him, the drell so heavy, through the room and over the island counter, his hands falling into the sink. Braith gasped when she saw the hastily tied up wrists and the cuts to the hands. “Fell my ass. These look self-inflicted!”

“He _fell_. . . Ma’am,” Asim insisted, looking her dangerously in the eye. “And nothing else. Understand?”

Braith shook her head and started to pour cold water on Casnar’s face. The drell spit and spluttered.

“Hold him, get ice from the freezer, I’ll get some gel and cauterizer.”

She ran into the bedroom, opened her closet, robe falling loose as she hurried out a canister full of medical equipment. She carried this back into the kitchen, lit the tip of a gun connected to a glass vial full of something cloudy and thick, and heating the gel as it came out, had Asim hold Casnar’s hands while she administered the cauterizer and healing medical ointments. She worked painstakingly slow, making sure the cuts would seal perfectly, pressing down a square cloth over each to help the warm gel spread and set. There were at least five deep gouges, as if he had taken shards and just scratched out of curiosity. A masochistic curiosity.

And when it was done, and Asim could step away and lean against the counter in relief, Braith took a cloth and began washing the blood off Casnar’s arms, fingerprints on his face under his eyes as though he had been wiping tears and spreading blood down his patak.

“Oh, you fucking idiot,” Braith said through her teeth, patting water around his head with a sponge. The water from the faucet was warm. “Why did you do this. . . You have everything in the world. . . Why did you do this. . .”

She looked at Asim who shook his horns.

“Can I leave him here?”

“No.”

She groaned when he gave a her look that said she was cold.

“I have so much work to do and my husband, I mean, Thane, is not going to be happy.” She sighed and looked down at Casnar, half drooping off the island. “Help me move him to the couch. He can stay until the morning. Then he’s out!”

Casnar gripped her hand, his eyelids folding apart and open. Braith startled from her sleep, having sat down on the chair next to his head while he lay passed out in the living room from late night to dawn.

“What are you doing here?” he asked her, not letting go.

Braith looked tired, wrinkles under eyes. “You idiot, you cut yourself and your driver came asking for help because you refused to let him go to a hospital and that ‘I would be better than a surgeon’.”

“You did survive a reconstruction.”

She took her hand away and pushed up, getting out of the chair and going to the kitchen. She came back with a glass of water and handed this to him. He could grab her wrist, but was having difficulty holding the wider glass.

“Oh!” She growled and sat down, this time on the couch where there was a gap between his chest and the end of the pad and helped him drink, pulling up on his heavy head and holding the glass to his lips. Her robe was sashed tight, though a slip of white could be seen.

“I am not your babysitter,” she finished, lifting the glass away and using her robe sleeve to dry the water off his tebris that had spilled from her brusqueness. Casnar made some weak movements with his cauterized hands and wrists to fend her off.

“Stop, you’re spilling on me.”

He swiped her hand away with his elbow, still in a stained robe. He was lying on top of several towels that had been set out under him in case he started to bleed again. Braith did not want his blood in her furniture.

Braith leveled him with a stare. “Why would you cut yourself?” She pointed at his wrists. “Short of committing suicide, they’re obviously the result of _you_ and they’re too organized to be per chance, unless you rolled back and forth on glass with your hands over your face. I mean, seriously.”

He narrowed his eyes at her, then looked away.

“What the fuck do you know about pain.”

“I know enough.”

He looked back at her. She’d said it softly. The steel in her eyes was more like a grey crystal in the early morning hour, light coming from her bedroom.

“But I don’t bleed myself for it. . . Is this the first time? I didn’t see any other cuts.”

“There are other, less obvious ways, of inflicting self-injury.” His hand reached for the silk peeping out of her robe and she stood up abruptly.

“You’re fucking insane, you know that? Are you going to try and do the same thing to my company? I think we need to end the deal.”

“You can’t. You know I’m good for it. Nolyn, that is.” He rest his head back into a pillow, crossing his wrists without a care of the pain. His eyes folded some, acknowledging it.

Braith shook her head and walked away, heading back into the kitchen to run some coffee and start herself a breakfast.

“I’ll have what you’re having,” he called from the living room.

“Prick,” she immediately replied, slamming her hands down, “I didn’t offer you anything.”

He looked at her, tilting his head. Braith threw her hands up.

“Fine! I’m making eggs. Do you have allergies?”

“Only to bad cooking.”

“Good. Maybe I’ll kill you because I’m the worst.”

“That casserole you made was very good.”

She stopped and stared at him. Casnar shrugged, a little smile conceding from his face. Something about having him on her couch in bloody robes, his hands and wrists sealed with cloth strips glued together with his skin wounds was strangely. . . Appealing. Braith snorted in disparagement of the situation and went back to work on cooking.

The coffee percolated and whined, the oil hissed with food, and the faucet ran. The smell of cooked eggs filled the air yummily and Braith made sure to make herself an extra egg.

Casnar sat up and went to the kitchen to pull out plateware and forks.

“What are you doing? If you can stand up and walk around, get out of my apartment.”

“You’d kick me out without feeding me? That’s rude.”

“You’ve malconvenienced me, got blood all over you, and besides being a walking sanitary nightmare, you were never welcome here in the first place. So if you can stand, get your driver here and go the hell home. Take the day off. Not like you do anything.”

He pushed her with sudden strength against the counter, the eggs still sizzling.

“I’m helping you with your company. I’ve already gotten you a _navarre_ , durril, and twenty million in credits plus more to come, especially once 6th Fleet joins up. How’s your Keeper capture, Braith? How about that AI your labs are researching? Whose money do you think is helping you fund that?”

He let her go, one of the seals loose and bleeding. Braith shut off the stove and moved the pans to prevent the food from burning and took out a paper towel to press to the opening wound.

“I’m sorry,” she said, licking her lips which were dry. She was in need of water. “I’m stressed. I have a bunch of important meetings today and I’m, frankly, nervous that you’re here because all you do is threaten to fuck me and treat me like a whore. I’m a fucking commander. I’ve led armadas and krogan and taken down Reapers. I’ve lost friends and loved ones to a war like everyone else, and I saved the fucking galaxy. I don’t need this shit from you. I expect it from a batarian, not from a drell. Most especially not from someone related to Kolyat and Thane.” She swallowed and looked up when he moved his hand away from hers.

Casnar gripped the sink and worked his lip, enfolding it between his teeth.

“I’m sorry, too. I. . . I’m just a miserable drell. I’ve got nothing besides money to spend and time. I’m tired of living. I don’t care much for it. There’s no one to grow old with me. Irikah and I always joked that we would be old biddies, lounging on Rakhana, or some far off star while we had nephews and nieces, children among our families.” He rolled his lip out in a petulant pout. “She died. And I felt alone. She was just my sister, but my parents. . . They wouldn’t procreate and have another.” He sighed.

“Is that really why you’re such an asshole?” She almost laughed, but could see sudden frailty in the drell.

“These past few nights, something’s clicked in me. Shut off. I just wanted to push for it, and then last night, realized how futile it would be, how unimportant. . . So I broke some glass. It felt good. I broke some more. The blood. . . Made me feel alive. . . So I cut myself and just watched it. . . Asim showed up. He was supposed to deliver courtesans, but he admitted to me he feared for them when he saw my state, and got rid of them, came back and did what he could. I maybe owe Asim my life, but. . . I’ll just pay him off and tell him to get lost.”

“I think he cares about you. He was adamant about this all being an accident and that you fell. . . I didn’t think you had anyone loyal to you. . . Who actually cared about you.”

Casnar’s brow twinged. “I pay him extra so he can pay for his family. Palaven was torn up. He sends the money back. I give him extra for gifts and such. I do the same for Kolyat, but. . . He doesn’t need me. His father has him set up with a trust, provides for him now that he can.” Casnar swallowed passed a lump in his throat and pushed off the sink, swaying around the counter and heading to the bathroom through the living room. Blood ran down his finger and Braith caught it, lifting his arm up to redirect the blood both on skin and in vein.

She helped him to the bathroom, where she disrobed him, taking care to keep her eyes up and fold the bloody robe with her back to him as she left him to his shower.

When he came out, he found towels waiting, a new compound with a sticky bandage. Casnar sat on the toilet lid and removed the old dressing that was unsealing, peered curiously at the cut in his arm, and dressed the wound in new ointment and bandage.

“What are you going to tell Thane and Kolyat when they see your arms?”

Braith looked up from the plate she was picking from, and quickly back down. Casnar had come from the shower wearing nothing but a towel, and this he loosely draped over his shoulder instead of around his waist.

“Goddamn it,” she muttered.

“I’m going to tell them nothing but the truth, and only if they ask,” Casnar replied, looking around for the robe she had taken. He decided to go into the bedroom. Braith swore under her breath.

“There’s a robe somewhere with my blood on it, woman. Where is it.”

“You can put on one of Thane’s robes. Just tie a goddamn towel or blanket around your waist.”

“And what good would that do,” Casnar muttered insolently, pushing through the hung up clothes in the master closet. He narrowed his eyes on something, then smiled, his eyes opening wide. He started to laugh.

“Braith, I think you left something in your future husband’s closet. It doesn’t look like it fits you though.”

Braith dropped the fork and ran into the bedroom.

Casnar picked her up and threw her on the bed with a squeak.

He held up the leathers and straps that Thane and she had used, recently integrated into their repertoire of bedroom behaviors. “She says she knows pain,” Casnar smiled, looking from the leather down onto her face. “You strike me as one who would like this sort of thing.”

“Casnar,” she grabbed at the chains and he jerked them away, stepping backwards, mocking her with the toys. She turned, grabbed the pillow and threw it at him. “Cover up, for godsake. Get out of my bedroom and leave that. . .”

He snapped the leather, expertly, his eyes suddenly intense and wide. “You want to know how to use these proper?”

“I don’t think I need to. Not with you.”

He made a grimace and tossed them onto the bed. “No fun.”

“I’m getting you a robe. This is absurd.”

She went into the closet, grabbed Thane’s largest robe, one that was burgundy and soft, and tossed it to Casnar. “Here. That should fit. Put it on and get those things out of my sight.”

“You really are too uptight,” he said, slipping his arms through and hissing as his bandage caught and pulled.

“Try not to bleed all over it.”

Casnar tied the sash and stood looking about the room.

“I would never fuck in here. Least of all with those tools. I prefer a finer leather myself. If you want, I can show you.”

“All set.”

She waited for him to step out, then followed into the living room.

“All kidding aside, Commander—“

“Braith. From you, you call me Braith.”

“Braith. . . Is this a recent fetish you’ve begun?”

“I’ve been experimenting. With Thane. Now no more questions and you pretend like you’ve never seen them and I’ll pretend like I’ve never seen you. Cut up or whatever.”

“I like that way you avoided looking. It was actually sexy to see you being so chaste.”

“Haven’t I _been_ chaste?”

He popped a yolk in his mouth, grimaced, and swallowed coffee, grimacing more. “Aya, this is terrible. . . I would say you’ve performed remarkably well given my intimations.”

“Intimations. . . Not the word I would use for it. It’s balls out and in the sack with you. Intimations. . .”

She shook her head.

“Are you going to shower at all?”

“That would be unwise with present company.”

“You’re not wearing more than a thin slip and some underwear under that sash of yours. What makes you think you being naked in a shower would be any less under threat?”

Braith flushed, her skin turning pink.

“There she goes. Like a stop sign.”

“God, what is it with you? You don’t stop. Someone could drop an asteroid on you and—“

“I would keep going until I got bored. You never seem to lighten up with me, Braith. It’s entertaining, and so long as it’s entertaining.” He turned to her and winked. With his fork, he pulled apart her sash.

“Very nice.”

Braith walked away, tying her sash up, and went to the omnitool. She held it out to him from the living room. “Call your chauffeur and tell him to pick you up. I need to get ready for work and _you_ have the day off.”

He washed his mouth out with water, reached into her fridge, and pulled out a handful of real fruit.

An apple in particular.

Biting it with a lusty crunch, Casnar walked over in his brother-in-law’s robe and chewed while he reached for the omnitool, turning it and dialing in digits with the stroke of his small finger. He glanced at her while he crunched another bite of the apple, licked his lip, squinted his gaze at the device, then tossed it on the couch.

“I told him not to bother.”

“You’re leaving. Now. Take my skyrunner. Just, please, get out.”

“You’re so afraid. Why not take off your robe and try me for size, Braith? I can keep it a secret.” He undid his sash, moved towards her, and Braith flared forth a wall of purple dark energy. Casnar swept through it, taking hold of her arm and dragging her, kicking, into the bedroom.

“Braith,” he held a small rod against her back, sliding it down her spine as he pressed her neck against the bed. “Tell me if you like this.”

He spread her with his tongue, kneeling low to flick up her robe and slip, pushing passed the elastic of her fabric covering her groin from the air. Braith cried out ecstatically, biting into the sheets.

“We have a winner,” he said, moving to speak, then sliding his finger in her ass.

“Oh. . . God. . .”

“That’s right. Tell me it feels good, Braith. Just make a noise here and there. You don’t need to be specific.”

“Stop, Casnar—“

He tugged off her underwear, just passed her hips, low enough not to impede him as he entered, pushing inch by inch until she could feel his balls skimming passed her thighs.

“Oooh. . . So tight,” he grinned, feeding in more.

He slapped her ass with the corded leather, making her jerk and clamp around him.

“Good. That’s responsive. Again.”

He slapped, the cord making a braid of white and red on her skin. Casnar hissed at her closure.

“Fuck. . . You really like that.”

Braith opened her eyes, seeing the white of the bed sheets up around her face. He was so thick and deep, and when he pulled out, he slid easily, then nudged at her opening. He cracked the cord on her again.

“There’s a trick a drell does to keep his women ready. Have you heard of the rolling tongue?”

“Please, Casnar, stop. . .”

“You don’t mean it.”

He slid back into her and pumped his hips, making her mouth form an ‘O’ wide and big.

_Crack!_

He arched his neck up, growling at how hard she folded around him. “Oh. . . Fuck. . . That’s intense.”

He licked her shoulder, pulling her robe down, and thrust his hips hard three times before pulling out.

_Oh, put it back in._

Casnar rolled her over so she could look at him, look at her, and put both hands either side of her waist. He demeaned her with a slavering look, one that made her wonder if he was going to fuck her senseless.

“You feel good, Braith. . . Very good.” He straightened and slapped the leather against her thigh.

“Stop,” but it was a weak word coming from her mouth.

Casnar’s eye twitched under his lid. He wet his lips. His breathing was hot through his nose.

“Tell me you want me.”

“I hate you.”

_Slap!_

“Tell me you want me.”

“Fuck you, Casnar!”

He entered her, hard, pulverizing her softness and heat with controlled, steady thrusts as he leaned over her, strong shoulders and arms holding him up in place as his lower half worked free on its own. He stared at her steel eyes snarling up at him, and he smiled as she began to glow red with feeling. It wasn’t pins or needles, it was sheer, rousing, wet, hungry ecstasy. Thane knew how to give it to her. She craved him. Casnar was using a rolling thrum that made her body pace faster in blood and rush.

“Casnar!”

“Yes. . . Say it. . . Say it. . . Come for me, sweet angel of mine. . .”

He fucked her hard, letting her wet all over him, the cuts on his arms not bleeding, his face nursing back an orgasmic bliss from feeling her. He needed this. This was worth begging for. Crawling hand and foot under. Her breasts were clear through the slip. Her hair black and eyes steel behind the closing lashes. Pink lips folding and opening from each other as she panted his name, couldn’t let go, couldn’t push him off, wanted both not to and to throw him from her. But she was being fucked and her body could handle it.

“Oh God!”

“Yes!”

He jerked her across the bed, climbing up with her as if his body were three separately functioning parts, one for his head and arms, one for his legs, and one for his hips and all between.

“Fuck!” he shouted. He growled, lifted up, and snapped the cord against her thigh again, arching back until all that could be seen was his wide chest and the brilliant violet tebris at his throat. “Fuck! That’s good!”

Braith clawed into the sheets. He snapped forward, covering her with his chest, sinking his tongue into her mouth and nearly choking her with the cord slipping around her neck. He rolled it in with his fist, tightening it just enough not to break skin and flailed at her with ass rocking in flexion.

“Good gods, woman, you’ve got me on my knees working for you,” he hissed, pulling her up. She threw her arms around him and held fast. He picked her up and stood on the bed, rocking into her like an endless machine. “Fuck!”

He came and slowed, lavishing her with long strokes of his tongue over her skin, scooping up the salt and groaning as he discharged inside her. He dropped the leather cord and grabbed her hair and ears, holding her so he could suck on her lips and pull at her tongue with inhaling breaths.

 _Oh my god, I’m so screwed!_ she thought, kissing him back, indulging in it. He felt like sin and sin was good right then and there. He throttled again, sliding in and out. She couldn’t believe nothing changed about his girth or hardness. She whimpered as he started more thrusts, beating upwards with the swing of soft firmness between his legs.

“Oh God, not again,” she whimpered, pulling away to wince. And then she felt it. Different from the rumbling. Unique from what Thane did. Her eyes snapped open. His face was tilted, green eyes intense and watching her.

“You feel it, don’t you. . . Let me show you what I bring from Rakhana. . . Only the rolling tongue may ever come from that planet. . . Mastery of ages. . .” He fell silent as he concentrated. The rolling, undulating purl began again, and it vibrated in the soles of her feet, running through her thighs along with every slap of his skin against hers, up through her groin, into her belly, making her breasts pucker and harden with excitement. Her fingers trembled and her skin on her face and scalp began to prickle. It wasn’t venom. It wasn’t acid. It was him, singing to her from the belly of his loins.

“Oh. . . Wow. . .”

The purling grew and her body relaxed, accepting him despite his having come and her feeling raw from the first time. He glided smoothly in and out, pulling down on her hips. He cruised into her heat, his lips parting as he fell into a mantra with meditative sound running through them.

She could almost hear him whimper somewhere far off as he nonstoppingly fucked her, not a skip in between each beat. Endless, ongoing, a machine, perfect and without feeling. . . Or maybe he was feeling.

She opened her eyes and could see he was watching her, his face relaxed, devoid of anger or the sneers and snarls he had liked to bestow on her. And when he kissed her, she could feel the deep vibration spreading through her tongue as it spread through her hips, his hardness spasming not once more but twice. And he kept going.

_Oh. . . Casnar. . ._

“Fuck,” she whispered breathily, lips chasting over his. He bounced her on his thighs, letting her breathe into his mouth, sharing his lungs with hers.

“Braith. . . Oh. . . Braith. . . Gods, you’re. . . You’re breaking me. . . Break me. . . Please. . .”

He groaned as he came again, arms flexing to pick her up and down. He began to rock his body with her around his waist, letting the weight of him fall down before rising up into her again. Finally, he slipped free and let her down onto the bed, covered in venomous oil and sweat, licking it off her, swallowing her breasts as he kneaded one and squeezed her waist, his length dripping on her belly, hot seed where it needed to be, and Casnar shuddered as he kissed her mouth, the coolness of her tongue making him chill where he was hot and lusty.

“Fuck. . . I’m addicted. . .”

He lay his bandaged arms around her, kissing her head and shoulder and neck. He nibbled on her skin and turned her face to probe his tongue in her mouth.

“I’ve never felt so alive,” he murmured, kneading his groin against her. “Fuck. . . I can’t think anymore. . .”

“Maybe that’s what you needed to shut the fuck up.”

He opened his eyes and snarled at her, tightening his grip on her face and rolling up. Pinning her down with his elbow, he breathed in and out deep.

“You don’t tell anyone this. Ever.”

Braith furrowed her brow into little v’s.

“Are you serious? I have to tell Thane.”

“No, please.” He pulled up on her, covering her mouth with his and singing in that way again. “Please, I need this. You’re too good. . . I can’t. . . I have to have this. . . This is. . . Incredible what we have. . . Please. . .”

 _He was begging. He was actually begging._ Braith scooted back on her elbows and pushed up his forehead, her breasts poking up under his chin. He blinked at her, his high coming down, but he was looking at her differently. The bed felt softer around them, trapping their heat. They might as well have been at a courtesan’s bordello, the air, humidity, and warmth perfect. And her perfume, her smell, the fuck on their skins.

“I need you. I needed you before. . . But now I know how important this was and what I was trying to do. . . Find you. . . Find feeling again. . .”

“Casnar, it was just sex. You fucked, I fucked, and now I’ve got to break it to Thane. . . You’ve ruined everything. . .”

He kissed her, folding his hands around her face and through her hair, kissing her down her mouth, over her chin, her cheeks, her neck, her breasts and kneading his revisiting hardness against the slope between her legs.

“Stop, Casnar, not again. I really need to go. . . _You_ need to go.”

“You don’t feel it? You don’t feel me?”

“Of course I feel you. I _felt it_.” She rolled her eyes.

He climb-crawled around her, elbows both sides of her body, and pushed into her again, Braith’s legs flexing up. She moaned as he bent his brow, lips spreading in a hiss as he entered her deep and began to rock, moving her along the bed as he reached down to pin her tight and grab her ass.

“You’re too good to let go. . . Now I know why he calls on Arashu when he fucks you. . . I assume that, of course.” He smiled as he thrust, cutting her off from questioning him and picking up speed. His muscles bunched in a quivering frenzy, taking with her his cry as she came around him. “Gods!”

Braith stared at the screen, seeing her face reflected back and the drell buttoning up Thane’s pants around his waist behind her.

“Who knew we were so close in sizes? Definitely didn’t see that similarity.”

She wiped her eyes.

“Casnar, I have to tell him. I love him. This will break his heart, but lying would be worse.” She covered her mouth and put down the screen.

Casnar walked over and bent down on one knee. He ran his fingers through her hair.

“I’ll take care of you. You don’t need him.”

“I do, I do, and you just came and took me away from him. . . God damn you, Casnar.”

She stood and tried to walk into the bathroom, but he stepped in her way and found she could not move passed. Casnar kissed her face repeatedly, running his hands up and down her slip, over her body, keeping her skin warm. Wherever he touched, she was so cold, except when he was inside her. And her tongue could go from hot to ice. It was like tasting a hot fudge sundae. _Fuck_ , he thought, _I could fall in love with this being._

“Don’t cry, my angel, don’t cry.”


	20. Chapter 20

The limo showed up. Kaidan stepped out and looked up at Nolyn Tower. He smiled at the thought of seeing Braith again, but wondered why she had moved his appointment up an hour. _First thing’s first._

He signed into the building with security, who informed him he would be meeting with Braith’s new aide, Casnar Soterios.

“Really? I didn’t think I’d be meeting with anyone besides Braith today.”

“Commander’s aide called it in. Had her passcode and everything,” the security said.

He led him into the tower and gave him the call ID for suite 500. Kaidan thanked him and waited for the vert lift.

The drell from the night before appeared to greet him as Kaidan stepped out onto the new level. He had dark gloves winding up his arms. Instantly Kaidan thought he was about to be assassinated.

“Mr. Alenko, glad you could make it. Chief Executive Shepard sends her apologies, as she has a meeting with the Galactic Union this day and needs to prepare. Since we will be going over standard paperwork for setting up a contract between Nolyn Enterprises and 6th Fleet,” the drell grinned, his face a little brighter, “there should be no surprises in store for your reading. If you will follow me.”

Casnar handled the rest of the negotiations, letting Kaidan know that each navarre had and would maintain separate identities, but if high profile travel routes were to be claimed by Nolyn for a rendezvous with trade or other similar venture, then 6th Fleet would be counted in as additional security and treated under Nolyn’s name.

“With devising a new means to reach T5103 and outlying moons, it will be necessary to protect the invested interests of both companies under the umbrella of one.”

“Is Braith going to be around later?” Kaidan asked, making a signature on the tablet.

“She will be when she is able. The woman has much pressure on her right now. I would not advise hassling her with any questions until she is freed of the GU presentation, but if you insist, I may be able to deliver a message to her.”

“Can you tell her to call me? I’d like to hear her voice.”

“I can arrange it,” Casnar replied. He signed for Braith and sent Kaidan a copy of the paperwork, as well as a memo to Lothairaxl Barend so that there would be no chance for the government authority to claim interest over 6th Fleet.

 _And the human can go on fucking his Parasini parasite_ , Casnar thought as he walked down the halls of suite 100, gazing into the doorways of the admins for employee services.

“A quick word,” Casnar called to one of the secretaries.

A man came over and looked up at the tall yellow drell.

“Sir?”

“What’s your name.”

“Conrad Verner, sir.”

“Conrad, do you know where the files are for one Thane Krios?”

“Those would be priority personnel. Braith Shepard would keep them in her office. I believe her droid, EDI, has the codes.”

“Does she now.”

Casnar made his way to suite 600 and looked about for the droid. Since his taking over 500, Braith had sent a memo out that 600 would be her primary floor. He found the EDI droid working the office filing system. _How opportune._

The droid responded to him with a greeting. Casnar cut straight to his demands.

“EDI, I need a file on Thane Krios for reassignment to the Attican Traverse following his current mission.”

“Braith Shepard prohibits any handling of crew dossiers besides herself and—“

“Braith Shepard has enacted me with priority control at the present time. I would appreciate not having to go back and request she give me the codes to bypass your protocols.”

“Quite frankly,” the droid suddenly said with a change of voice, “I would like to see you try it.”

Casnar raised an eye ridge and peered curiously at the blue haired robot.

“Are you an AI or a VI?” he asked.

“AI are prohibited by the Galactic Races United Treatise. Following the end of the Rea—“

“Can it, EDI, no pun intended. I know an AI when I hear one,” he snapped. Straightening, he left Braith’s office and returned to the ground level, taking his skyrunner back to Atmore Street.

Springing lightly into the tower block, he ran into the stairwell and shot up the stairs, undoing the buttons of Thane’s coat and top of his vest as he made for the apartment. He took out the fob and let himself in on the fiftieth floor.

“Braith, you have an AI in that droid.” He stopped.

She was aiming a gun at him.

“Don’t come any closer to me.”

“Braith, really.” He walked forwards and took the gun from her, tossing it on the chair and sitting down on the couch to brush her eyes and kiss her face. “You know, and I know, you would never shoot one so close to Kolyat and Thane. And the scandal that would follow. . . Business associates, lovers, murder. . . And all the naughty things you do with AI. . . I realize now, I was wrong about EDI. You’ve been adding your work into her and recreating the one you lost. She surprised me today. . . So authoritative.”

He kissed her ear and turned her face to him, mouthing over her lips until she opened to his advances. Casnar lifted her onto his lap and began undressing her from the robe again, unzipping his pants and wiggling aside his buckle.

“No. . . Casnar. . .”

She arched away, but he leaned forward, covering her breast in his mouth and pulling her on top of his lap. Braith cried out, half moaned, as he sank her onto him and fulfilled her punishment.

“Yes. . .” he hissed, pulling her down whenever she rose up. It was as good as the first time, perhaps even better because her body needed him, was adjusted and accepting. He could smell her perfume and the headiness of her hair, pulling off Thane’s coat and vest, unbuttoning his shirt. He picked her up, turned, and spread her on the couch, lusting at her with thrusts that seemed to move of their own volition.

“Gods, you just don’t tire me.” He curled his hands around her pale thighs, her long legs out to the sides, grunting with the force he renewed fucking her with. “Hold a gun at my face when I come through the door after handling your meetings for you. . . How insulting.” He slammed into her harder, getting the grey eyes to open, and smiled broad from teness to teness. “My angel doesn’t know how to say thank you proper.” He bit down on her heel, but not to leave a mark, closing her legs as he fucked her with these vertical. She came, shaking down his girth, and he followed soon thereafter.

The airlock opened and night was as well as day. Thane kept an eye to the right as Feron, James, and several other teams slipped out of the docking of the relay, moving sure as mice that had studied and found their way onto the station. There was a fire display of guns catapulting projectiles at a ship left from war they had hauled towards the far end of the station, allowing it to interfere with the weak barrier they had tested, and attracting the new cannons to the infiltration of debris.

“We’re on site,” the helmet spoke, relaying where everyone was to each individual among the crews. “Keep wits about you as we have several entities moving within fifty meteres. . . forty-five. . . Looks like one coming this way.”

Feron’s voice was halting and scratchy. Thane turned his visor to the left, nodding at the others, and strode off in the uniform with magnetized boots, his gun slung over his shoulder. He was feeling good after his last few hours of sleep, listening to Braith’s repeated voice in his head about their fantasy together. He had told her not to tell him anything dirty or sexy, not with only a few hours left to go, and they had talked about possibilities. . . He brought up his proposal again, and having made no formalities other than to survive death and war together, they agreed to talk more about marriage. _Why not?_ he thought, content as he removed his rifle and aimed down the empty corridor, exposed to space, a long arm and leg coming out from a bunkhold up ahead. He sighted down the lens through his HUD, using the assistance of the technology in his headgear to promote accurate reception of the impending Keeper with its long neck and black eyes emerging into space. The icons honed in, gleaming and blinking in a triangle around its head and lower down, just above the curve of plate on its chest. It saw him, his lone black figure stalking it down the side of the station, the rest of his team and two more having disappeared to come at its flank and from behind.

Positioning himself higher up, Feron aimed down with the array liner and signaled to his squad. James appeared on his HUD display, blinking twenty meters off.

“In position team 1.”

“In position team 2.”

“Bait, charged.”

Thane knelt down and waited.

The Keeper turned its body towards him, moving one leg at a time in rapid succession. There was silence as it thundered down the ramp towards its prey, and there was no flinch as Thane lined up and shot two syringes from the mouth of the rifle into the head and to the chest where his targets were circling.

“Array, fire now. Target has been pacified.”

A net of luminescent light fell upon the Keeper as its huge head thudded to the ground, lifeless and immobile. Thane stood as the array net folded it up, tightening the limbs and head close to the body until it was a curved mound. It looked uncomfortable, but it was best they keep it that way for moving.

“Let’s levitate and get it off the station. We’ve got a little more than one minute and counting.”

“Team 1, go. Team 2, follow behind.”

They activated the boosters around the net and lifted the Keeper off the floor of the corridor, walking it quickly back to the end of the station where they’d arrived. James Vega and a team of four kept up the rear, while Feron and his squad moved around the sides and jogged to go ahead, catching up with Thane who had shouldered his rifle in exchange of having his hands free. In magnetic boots, it was harder not to be loud and send tremors through the surface, but it was space, and space was silent.

“Good job, everyone,” Thane congratulated as they moved the Keeper into a waiting shuttle, far off lights still attacking the debris of ship material taking up the relay’s firepower. Two more Keepers moved out from the bunkhold the first one had arrived from, but Thane and the crews were already locked in and launching away into space.

They dropped him off at his AM1, pulling up to dock with the small vessel, and Thane nodded to each human, turian, drell, and face that was grinning and smiling like fools. But these were Braith’s men and women, hand selected, battle proven, and though they were clowns at times, everyone worked as a team and made up for it with being on point.

He closed the docking shell and stepped into the cavity that was his AM1’s shelter, and gazing at the comm, he looked above it at the picture of Braith and he sharing an easy moment together. _She will be very pleased with what we have accomplished. Everything went perfectly as planned, thanks to her strategy, Miranda’s syringes, and Mordin’s technology._ He couldn’t wait to tell her.

He attached himself to his comm line and connected with Nolyn Towers. She would be at work by now if he knew his Braith.

“EDI,” Thane said, “where is the Commander?”

“Commander Shepard did not show in for work today. All calls and meetings are being conducted offsite. Would you like me to transmit a message?”

“Why can’t I speak to her directly?” Thane asked, alarmed.

“Casnar Soterios has been enacted with executive decision. He is delegating most tasks now, and has taken control of my protocols per Braith’s order.”

“What?”

“Thane Krios,” EDI suddenly changed her voice, “the current state of the Commander’s affairs with regard to Sere Soterios has raised a red flag. I believe Braith Shepard has been compromised.” Her voice switched back just as suddenly. “You will be removed from active status for future missions to Charon. The Attican Traverse has a new flight vector and will require supervision by someone trustworthy enough to engage with 6th Fleet. You are to report to the attached coordinates immediately. No further data may be supplied at this time. Comm disconnecting in five seconds.”

“EDI, where is the commander?”

“Four.”

“EDI, is she at the apartment?”

“Three.”

“EDI, respond.”

“Two.”

Thane punched the dashline and swore.

“One.”

Braith blinked once and took a breath. She arranged her hair, buttoned up her uniform, and turned to the vidcom. The screens went on and she addressed the Galactic Union leads. Admiral David Anderson was among them. He smiled when he saw her, and she smiled back as she acknowledged him.

“Leaders of the Galactic Union, you honor me with your time. The navarres are holding steady. Trade is flourishing. We still have some frays in the confines of traveled space, but as I report to you, my focus will be on the relays, and what we have not encountered yet, but may.”

“Commander,” Admiral Hackett’s gruff voice filled the soundwaves, “have you the new initiative you outlined to us per last quarter’s report?”

“Yes, sir. Allow me to begin by stating that several crews have been sent to Charon Relay to detain our first Keeper since the war, and will be returning to Lothairaxl for quarantine and isolation of study. We have established that as of 0500 UTC, there will be contact made within the relay. I have personally selected those who will be administering the project. Thane Krios has been given the serums that will help detain the Keeper. Vega and Feron are guiding two additional teams to assist in trapping and transporting it onto Cabal’s transport freighter. We should hear back once the Keeper is safely confiscated and moved within a safe distance of the relay.”

“Thank you, Commander,” David Anderson said.

There was a small round of applause from the other leaders of the Asari Republics, Salarian Union, Turian Hierarchy, and additional Council races. No Quarians or Batarians were represented.

“It is without further ado that I compose my plan for the new defense initiative. I would like to call it EDI, in memory of a friend, and it will talk the fine line of our premises for AI. We need weapon by which to control the relays once again. It is with some concern that I must point out the relays are gateways into uncontrolled space. We have limited resources and small locale among the galaxy with which to continue and proliferate trade. We do not know what the status is beyond these connections. What will come, what is hiding, what remains to be learned?”

Braith took a breath, her palms colder than ice. She glanced aside, formulating her next thoughts, then looked to her audience on the monitors, seven around her in the office Casnar had provided her with in his tower at Ayr Heights.

“The Reaper AI confided in me that when we destroy the Reapers and their relays, it will not be long before we set forth to recreate that which we destroyed. The cycle must continue. We are better prepared this time around, with regard to expectation. In no way are we prepared strategically. . . Still.” She wet her lips, moving her fingertips behind her in a clasp of hands. “I propose breaking with treatise and reconstructing the AI, but with our plans in mind, and not the Reapers’.”

A gust of noise, static over the comms. Anderson looked upset, and Hackett’s face read with what she assumed was on all of the other alien leaders frowning back at her.

“Commander, you can’t be serious,” the Asari Councilor Tevos said.

“Councilor Tevos, I am. Construction could begin as soon as tomorrow. We have the research, and the capabilities. I offer myself as the one to return to Citadel Station in order to add the reconstructed AI to the tower itself. In two year’s time, it could be done. . . Possibly less.”

“But, Commander,” the Turian Hierarch Fedorian in the screen left of her flanged, separating his mandibles, “AI were what brought this on us all.”

“No,” Braith said. “That is incorrect. AI are constructs by the minds that build them. Before humanity existed, we were preceded by Protheans, and before them, races with powerful, telekinetic powers who willed from their worlds deprived of sensation and humanity, or what have you wish to call it. . . Respect for Life. Here we exist, united as one power. With our collective minds, the lessons we have learned, we can build the new Enhanced Defense Initiative, which will take over what the Reaper AI had programmed into it, and have the purchase of new life to give it pause before it considers death an acceptable outcome. We will give it rules by which to make its decisions. This EDI will work to solve for reduction in loss of life, as opposed to overall harvesting of troublesome species. The relays open up to us a world of worlds, and as we grow, we will need something to grow with us and help us feel out the universe without endangering loved ones and families. More possibilities exist in what we know as Lothairaxl, as we have not yet explored her engines, deep as they go. From Lothairaxl, we have found a means of energy that is quite possible to understand, but not without the aid of an AI. Simple, logistical, nonbiased reasoning, focused solely on transformation of information from cold science and technology, not social heuristics and cultural histories. That can be preserved elsewhere, in a separate AI. In order to control these relays, we need to use something that can travel by light, or data, sound, something intangible, that no human or organic creature may exist to do. We must turn to the AIs once again. This time, give them the experiences we taught to EDI, the original shackled Cerberus AI aboard the Normandy SR3. The code I submitted through the Crucible destroyed all technological life as we know it.” She took a deep breath. “We need to invite the Quarians back from Rannoch, what few survived, to help us do this.”

Braith turned off the comm and looked to where Casnar sat in his room above, gazing down at her through a glass floor. He waved his finger for her to come to him.

“There. . . That went over well,” he said, purling at her and taking her elbows to pull her into his arms. She leaned away as he rolled his tongue over her collar and up into her hair.

“I want to go back to the tower.”

“You go back, Thane won’t be arriving anytime soon. I have sent him to meet 6th Fleet in the Traverse, which means you have some more time to think of what you will tell him, though I recommend that you keep our secret, Braith. . . Because I know you don’t want to hurt him.”


	21. Chapter 21

The line rang. It rang for as long as could be. Braith put down the omnitool and waited, then picked it up again and pressed it to her ear.

“It’s not going to transmit, Braith,” Miranda chuckled, coming in to sit with her on suite level 400, in room 402. “You want to try again and get the same result? It might be a little different, but I doubt it.”

Braith smirked at her and looked sullen again. She rubbed her hair back over her head and mussed it up, looking glamorous in the morning light coming through the studio area for drawing up routes to and through the system. Miranda popped her lips and watched Braith, noticing a particular mark under her right eyelid. She narrowed her eyes in thought, stood up, and bent down to Braith, scrutinizing the woman as she almost toppled backward from the curious med officer.

“Braith, have you been getting any sleep?”

“No.”

Miranda frowned. She sat back down. “A cucumber will help with the dryness and bags. You should take a day.”

“I really don’t want to.”

It had been a week since she went back to her apartment, and she was avoiding Casnar like the plague. Thane was due back from assignment with 6th Fleet, having gone off dutifully and not said a word. _Probably because he was so angry I was avoiding his contacts_ , Braith thought. _But I’ll have to talk to him sooner or later._

There was a disturbance in the hall outside the studio lab and Braith stilled, listening like a hawk. She had a tense look on her face, trying to determine if the sound was what she thought it was, Miranda peering at her quizzically.

“Quick, let’s move into the other room,” Braith said, grabbing her personal agenda and closing up her tablets. Miranda’s jaw dropped at how desperate Braith was suddenly to hide everything with her in the coffee room next door.

“What are you—“

“Shut up, Miranda. If you’re just going to sit there then pretend like I’m not here.”

She skirted the table and ran into the kitchen area where they made their coffee, hoping the grains would blind Casnar to her scent. She hadn’t even been wearing her perfume lately, so as to avoid him hounding her out in the tower. The sound of heavy clipping footsteps with hard soles carrying weight on them was heard in the hall, and the yellow drell flashed passed the doors, two admins on foot carrying after him his datapads and necessities. Miranda wrinkled her nose when she saw him go by, then looked at the coffee room entrance.

“So it’s legitimate,” she said, standing up and walking in there, Braith hissing at her to silence. “You and Casnar are butting heads over something. What is it? Is he making orders for his office again? The expenditures are obscene for just an office on 500th. I mean, glass desk, urban wiring, teleconferencing on ten screens. . . You’d think he fancied himself the Shadowbroker.”

“He’s the devil,” Braith said, waving her back to her seat. “Go sit down or come all the way in here, just don’t make it look like you’re talking to me.”

“Braith. Get out of there.” Miranda tried to tug the woman out of the pantry closet on her black heels, and the two played a tug of war as Braith fought back and tried to balance her belongings.

“Let go of me, Miranda! You’re going to make a—“

“Scene?” Casnar said as he walked into the room, two of his admins carrying more than a fair share of office supplies. He looked at Miranda, raised his eye ridges appreciatively, then back at Braith.

“Office. Now.”

Braith scowled at Miranda as he waited for her to accompany him.

“See what you did?” she hissed as she walked by the woman.

“I’ll ping you later,” replied Miranda, puzzled.

“Sixth Fleet easily destroyed two lists of batarian pirate cruisers over the reports, Braith,” Casnar said as he took the stairs with her and his aides. “You should be commending Mr. Alenko for running such a diligent and tough as nails _navarre_.”

“He did learn a little from me,” she mumbled.

They left the well after two flights and Casnar sent the admins to work on the 100th floor. He waited until they left with the boxes and supplies they were to restock on, then turned to Braith and walked by her to gaze out a window onto Lothairaxl city streets far below.

“Have you decided to go forward yet with my offer?”

“I am deciding if I am going to tell Thane after or before I have dinner with him when he returns.”

“That should be interesting.” He glanced at her, profiled in her dark grey sweater and black pleated skirt. She had her hair coifed higher today and was looking. . .

“Braith, I know you’ve already said no, but I beg you reconsider my offer that you move in with me to the pavilion.”

“I am _not_ moving in with you. All you want to do is have sex. I’m a working woman, not some prostitute for you to shed all over.”

“There you go again with the reptilian references. Do I shed?” He turned and gestured to his chest and the rest of his body, which was dressed in black and his usual round button at the collar. He was always impeccable, and lately, since the incident, had been on her about clothes she wore and what he preferred to buy to dress her in. Braith was sick of it.

“I want to know when the Nolyn _navarre_ is going to have its joint marketing event with XED. You said you would arrange that,” Braith switched topics. “When am I going to hear on that big event?”

He smiled, suddenly pleased with her change of focus. “As soon as you try on the dress I have in mind for you. It’s _very_ tasteful. I think you would be pleased with me.” He turned and walked over to her, kneeling down on one knee and looked up into her eyes. “It would honor me very much if you wore it, I kid you not.”

She looked down her nose at him and turned away, walking with a swish of her skirt. He caught her ankle with just a brush of his fingers. His nail caught lightly on the clasp built into the back of her shoe, and he growled.

“Am I not being clear?” he asked, rising to follow her and brushing at the skirt, sliding his hands along her legs as she turned. He spread these in the corner he caught her in. “I said I want you to come over and try on the dress.”

“I’m going to be at work all day and all night, what with the Keeper that Cabal returned. The studies are important and I have access to everything I need here.”

Casnar picked up the skirt end and turned her around.

“Fine. Then I’ll just fuck you until you agree to come over and try it on.”

“Casnar, stop!” She kicked out at him, he catching her knee and lifting it up to undo his buckle, push down his pants, and pull out a raging hard cock. He pushed her underwear aside, sliding in as he grabbed her neck and forced her to look into his eyes so he could see her come.

“You. . . Will. . . Do. . . As. . . I. . . Bid. . . You,” he said, slamming into her in the corner. No one was on the suite, so he fucked her in plain view of the glass doors, skirt curled up in his hand, gripping her thigh as he let go of her neck, his face relaxing as he saw her lose her anger and go into rapture from his pummeling. “Gods, you feel good. Seeing you in that sweater just won’t do.” He flipped up her threads and exposed the black satin of her bra, heavy with breasts, and grabbed her waist, smacking into her loudly. “Fuck, Braith. I’ll beg for you. You turn me on so. Oh, gods, gods. . . Gods!” He growled as he let go and banged her as hard as he could, tebris filling with the rush of blood as he suddenly came and nearly ripped her skirt with the explosion tensing up his muscles. He gasped, burying his face into her neck, and moaning like a tiger after mating, licked at her, bit her skin softly, and sucked on her ear.

Braith’s lips puffed apart as she felt him pulse again, her head light with climax tingling through her belly and down into her toes.

“Gods, I love you, Braith. I’ll do anything for you. Gods,” he breathed, chest heaving over her. He let her leg down, turned her to face him, and kissed her, picking her up and holding her against the wall. Squeezing her lip between his teeth, his suit and shirt loose, pants below his thighs, he murmured on her flesh. “Let me come over tonight. I want to sleep with you in your bed, pretend you’re my wife, wake up in the middle of it and eat you like it’s the first time.”

“Go fuck yourself, Casnar.”

“Only if you watch and finger yourself for me, then let me finish in your mouth like a whore.”

He pulled on her lip, kissing her hotly, Braith trembling at his words, and hating how badly _good_ they made it sound.

“Can we do it?” he asked, kneading between her thighs with his fingers as he kissed her throat. “I’ll come by at 8:00. I have to get a suit fitted and make some rounds, then I’ll come over, and I promise, I promise, I’ll make you feel pretty.”

He pushed his thumb into her, smiling under her chin as she shook and sighed.

“I love you, Braith, what you do to me. I’ve never felt so desperate for a woman. Don’t deny me. Don’t. Ever. Deny. Me.” He captured her mouth, sucking in her cheeks, driving in his tongue to scrape at her with the powerful tool, and to let her know what waited later that night.


	22. Chapter 22

Thane turned the ring over and over in his fingers, looking through the loop of gold into the door ahead of him as he sat leaning against the couch.

The couch that smelled like Casnar.

His black eyes blinked little.

The ring rotated over and over.

No music played. Just the muffle of silence, and a pair of heels exiting a lift, drawing closer and closer.

Thane sat up, leaning forward from the couch, his face stone as he looked as though he were burning a hole through the door with his eyes. The door pinged, the computer announcing a welcome to its apartment’s owner, and Braith suddenly appeared in her grey sweater and black skirt, long legs beneath the hem, heels up in her shoes, tablets in her right arm against her hip, bag on her shoulder of her left side. Her mouth hung open, lips parted in either surprise or from being winded from the walk, he didn’t care which.

Thane perched forward with his elbows on his knees, hunched and looking up at her with the face of expectation, and that gave her the sense he was anticipating a solid answer post haste.

She dropped her bag left, thudding in the hall outside their apartment, maintaining her grip on the tablets while racing a hand through her black locks, holding the bunch of hair, then letting go to set her hand on her hip, tucking into the sweater.

“You look nice,” Thane said, hiding the ring in his right hand.

Braith shrugged and nodded her chin as if this was acceptable.

“You look. . . Good,” she replied, exasperated.

Thane had not turned on any lights, only letting the glow from the bedroom illuminate her. It was still daylight. He could be made out, but was shaded. Taking his right palm and hiding the ring in his pocket as he stood from the couch, he took two easy steps towards her. His left hand reached forward and wrapped his arm around her left waist, encouraging her to come into the apartment and reaching quickly to pick up the stiff straps of the bag on the floor of the hall. He inhaled her sweater and scent as his face moved close to her, down and up, and he leaned over her, his forehead making contact with hers as he looked into the grey eyes averting him by fixing on space between them, or lack thereof because his trunk touched the fabric of her knit sweater.

His chest heaved wide and downward as he took another breath in and expelled. Braith’s eyes closed as he took a step backward, walking her with him, carrying the bag up with his right arm.

“Can I make you dinner,” he said low, breathing over her.

She squeezed her eyes shut, tears pressing from her black lashes. Rolling her lips up in between her teeth, she sniffled and nodded, a small, desperate plea of a cry escaping the back of her nose.

Thane shushed her, putting the bag down. The door closed. He gripped the side and back of her head, fingers in her hair, holding her still as he pressed his lips to her left eyebrow and set the left cheek of his patak against her temple.

“It’s alright,” he whispered, swaying a little. “It’s alright. . . Tell me everything. . . I won’t be angry with you. I won’t be angry. . .”


	23. Chapter 23

Thane laid her down on the sheets of their bed. Fresh sheets. Clean. Free of the stain of another. He closed his eyes as he kissed the skin around her mouth, tilting his head left above her as he worked to her lips, taking care to be gentle and delicate with her. His Siha needed love, healing, trust, and forgiveness. His siha of battle and glory, death and loss. A tear fell from his eyelids onto her cheek and her lashes fluttered open. Her fingers came up and spread over his green patak and red tebris as she tucked her chin and looked up at him questioningly. Her shoulder was naked, breasts against him and his tribally striped green and black nakedness, nestled between her legs in a comforting embrace among the sheets. He pulled away like she did, and felt the curve of her eyebrow with the inside of his conjoined fingers.

Afterwards, Braith sat on the edge of the bed in a cream slip with a blue satin sash over her arms and shoulders. Thane walked around the bed from the closet, dressed in his burgundy robe and came to bend beside her, caressing her locks and kissing her forehead. He kept his hand on her middle back and his face lowered to hers as she stared at her hands before her chest. A gold ring was on her left finger.

“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” he asked her, voice still low and gentle, nurturing.

She nodded at the ring. “Yeah,” she said through a breath. She brought her face up. He kissed her lips, and rubbing her back, departed from the bedroom. Braith sniffed, looked out the window, and wiped her eyes again on the back of her wrist.

Thane stared down at her bag. The omnitool was inside, and it was blinking. He glanced behind him at the bedroom, then bent to the bag and extracted the silver device. Turning it over, he depressed a small tab that popped out an earpiece, and this he caught in his fingertips and placed into his right teness. His thumb grazed over the omnitool’s control card and relayed the waiting messages. Thane stood still, listening.

At first, he made no expression, eyes maintaining their width. Gradually, as the seconds counted downward, his lips pressed together tightly, his eyes enlarging.

He turned and looked behind him again at the bedroom doorway, then faced forward, his face very rigid.

Eventually, he removed the ear piece from his teness and slid it back inside the shelter of the omni cuff. It clicked into place. Thane handled the controls of the omnitool, deleting each and every message from Casnar Soterios against his better judgement, but he didn’t want Braith to listen to them. His lips twitched to the right as he quelled his anger, digesting the abusiveness, the unholy declarations of love, the insidious threats, and the rich playboy’s desperate pleadings. His thumb kept tapping, deleting all seventeen messages.

Casnar was obsessed.

The last message was his threat that he would be coming over and expecting the door to open to him upon first knock at eight.

Thane returned the omnitool to Braith’s bag and went into their bedroom. She was still sitting on the edge of the bed, the back of her neck bare, head angled downward.

“Braith,” Thane spoke to her from the doorway. “I’m moving you to Kolyat’s. I know it’s short notice, but Kolyat is still on Cabal and I can access his apartment. I know the salarian at the front desk. It’s only two blocks away and Casnar will not be able to find you.”

Braith stood, nodding once in acknowledgement as she turned and dutifully began to pull open her drawers and take out clothing to change with. Thane helped remove her robe and tilted her face to look at him, giving her comfort in his gaze. They pressed lips to one and other.

“Dress quickly. Pack what you need for at least a few days.” He squeezed her shoulder, looking at her intently. “I need to know you will not go to him.”

“Thane, what am I going to do?” she suddenly said, flustered. “Avoid him during business hours? Have a chaperone sitting between us during meetings? I can vidcall, but he’s going to get suspicious and my avoiding him will make him angry.”

“I will be with you when you _must_ be around him. But if I can’t, I need to know you will ignore his advances.”

“I can’t kill him, Thane,” she said, angry, gazing at the bureau and shaking her head. “Outside of war, it’s murder, and I’ll lose the _navarre_ if I do something criminal. The GU. . . Everything. . . It’ll be like Bahak all over again in terms of the trials.”

She looked worn in that moment. His beautiful siha, who seemed so fresh-faced since the day they had won the war, was now looking drawn to tears and tired. And whatever Casnar had been doing to her was draining her happiness.

Thane pulled her into his chest and wrapped his arms tight around her.

“We won’t let that happen. I’ll think of something. I will.”


	24. Chapter 24

Lashes hooded her eyes as she descended the steps to the waiting skyrunner, long streamlined stripes of black running through the edges aligning the windows and hood. Thane was in the front seat, his arm over the shoulder padding, waiting for her to enter, his back turned to the side window as the pale skin and angelic face of his siha lowered passed the roofline of the vessel and turned forward, taking the seat beside him.

Casnar flicked his cigarette out the window, black skyrunner parked across the street on the opposite corner as he watched _his_ angel come out of the building and settle into the comfort of her skyrunner with the drell that had failed his sister. He reached for the controls, coaxing his vessel into gear with angry taps among the dash, and joined traffic, going down the street and U-turning at the next air light, moving back along Atmore to pick up tail behind Braith and Thane.

He saw him put his arm around her, over the seats, Braith leaning her head against her lover through the rear oval of a window, and Casnar’s fists tightened around the handles of steering. He lowered a green-eyed glare until his eyes hooded back at him in the mirror, casting shadows over his normally bright, sunny face. The muscles beneath the broad plates of his brow bunched with anger. He kept as far behind, as close as he dared, following them the two blocks to his nephew’s hotel, the 2121, and watched as he flew passed the skyrunner turning into the lower garage.

Thane directed their ride down the ramp, turned left, and followed it to the next level below. He drove it straight for a time, passing parked vehicles, then turned into a lot space by the vert lift to the upper levels. The garage repair shop was down there, and a few salarians and turians were working late evening jobs around the bilinears and skyrunners of the hotel’s residents.

Thane opened his door, stepped out and went around the back of the skyrunner, opening the trunk and pulling out a small case, then carried this to Braith who had emerged from the passenger side. He stooped to kiss her, Braith unexpectedly grabbing his shirt and pulling him against her form in a long, hot kiss. Thane almost dropped the case, holding it tight in one hand, the door blocking left of them, his other arm around her and cupping the curve of her hip. She held him there, sucking roughly on his mouth.

“Siha,” he haled out, chest filling with drumming of heartbeat and blood, “get upstairs. This is not the time.”

“You’re coming up?” Her grey eyes flashed the light from the upper tiers of molding in the garage.

He looked at her, nodding, his need reminding him of being a young drell first experiencing the lust of a pretty drellahna on a coverfold snuck into the training houses of the Compact drell for assassins. He forced himself to restrain his urge to answer her eagerness.

It had been some time since last they had experienced the intense, sexual arousal that came with running for their lives, fighting enemies, watching for explosions. A past life fraught with secrecy, urgency, danger. He was as excited as she, if not more. Thane nearly smiled, remembering those beautiful nights in between missions when they couldn’t hold back from one and other, knowing the next day might be the end of them. Of everything. Broken bed beams, pounding on walls, hot showers between each other’s feet. . .

“I love you, siha,” he breathed over her.

“I love you, too,” she whispered, taking the handle of the case from him and clipping across the garage metal, carrying with her the impressed gazes and jealous regards of the mechanics as she went to the vert lift and opened the doors by press of her elbow on an overriding button. Thane locked the skyrunner, nodded to the mechs, and walked to join beside Braith, putting his hand in one pocket, the other around her hip. They stepped into the lift together, and as the door slid closed, Thane turned his face towards hers for another tender kiss that made the mechanics chuckle and shake their heads, forlorn that _their_ lovers were cold, hard metal and grease underhand.

A black skyrunner with tinted windows coasted down the rampway and glided about each level of the garage, lowering and slowing as it passed Thane and Braith’s skyrunner. With a rev of thrusters, it raised, spinning a sharp one-eighty, and flew back up the ramps, out the entrance and into traffic again.

Mists arose from the drains of the streets, and a nearby tunnel glowed with the roar of the omni bullet racing through with passengers.

Lights in the hall gave a serene glow as the vert lift opened and Thane and Braith tumbled out, Braith mashing him against the wall with the case sounding loudly against the plaster. Thane gave up trying to fight her for the case and put both hands over her ears, kissing back as he rolled her shoulders to the wall. They fought over who would be on top in the hallway, smiling as they eventually made their way to the right, searching for their door. Braith had a tan jacket on, down to her thighs, the same color shoes, black shirt and shorts. She ran her fingers into his folds along his tebris, and the final door opened as he swiped his wrist fob against it, both falling in with Braith letting out a loud, cackling laugh.

Thane lifted his head up off her chest, having landed on top of her as she groaned and wobbled her head against the paneling to look at him. Chuckling, he gazed down at her, the door trying to close behind them but bumping his ankles.

“This is highly inappropriate given our circumstances,” he laughed, pushing himself off her and offering his hand, taking hers to help her stand.

Braith jumped up, bumping against him, her lip curled into her mouth with a smile. He tilted his head for another kiss, but pulled up short and turned.

The door was still open. He went to it, closed it, and returned to Braith, taking her hand and leading her deeper into the suite, leaving their case on the floor.

Casnar tugged on black gloves over both hands, singing a murmured song to himself and glancing out the front window. He pulled a mask over his head covering his yellow scales from everything in the night down at the base of the streets, and already fitted in a black suit, pushed open the door, adjusted his pants, and closed it.

He walked along the street, strolling out in the open but under cover of dark shadows along theomnichunnel, and taking hold of a fire handle, pulled himself up the side of the next building and began to climb. He hopped over a rail and strode along a catwalk, sliding his gloves along the runners, no longer singing to himself. He reached another handhold, swung up, and climbed lithely higher.

Thane tucked her in, leaning over her to kiss her mouth, then stood, letting Braith to turn and sleep. He walked backwards, about-faced, and made for the door of the suite.

Closing it behind him, the door sealed and locked. He went back to the vert lift, waited for it to pick him up, and stepped inside the doors when they opened.

The hall was empty but for a patterned carpet rolling from end to end, dim lighting, textured walls in browns, reds, and creams. Sconces glowed interminal, and the molding on the floor was warm and brown.

Braith slept with her eyes closed, on her side, for once all week at peace. She had a light smile on her lips as she lay on the pillows.

A black figure dropped slow by the wall, pulled off his mask, removed his gloves and shirt one by one.

The snap of a buckle caused Braith’s eyes to open as she turned over and stared at Casnar coming over to join the bed with her.

She stared up at him as he straddled her waist, pants still on, buckle free, and covered the right side of her face with gently curled knuckles.

He slid back, crawling his knees lower down her legs, and with his shirt off and arms straight either side of her, supporting the weight of his trunk, he turned his face into the side of her neck, gently kissing down her jaw, lifting his mouth to each new spot on her, over the bone of her collar, down the slope of her breast, and tugging down her black pajama top, engulfed her nipple and the swell of her pale skin around it with his mouth. He slid his arm under her back between her bicep and side, holding her to him as he sucked and swallowed at her mound. He didn’t say anything, not berating or chastising her.

He wanted to make love to her like the other drell, the one she wanted to marry, the one he could care less for.

She didn’t know how to stop him. She gave in to his hungry demand, wrapping her legs aroundhis yellow waist through the blankets, which he tugged and pulled until he pushed these down, only having to contend with the thin, sheer boxers underneath. He slid a hand up her left thigh, in through the outlet of her short, and finding nothing there, fingered her with long, quick, rotating strokes of his conjoined pair, pulling out slow and turning. He still hadn’t said anything.

His skin was hot, his fingers hotter, and wet in addition. His mouth was fire, eyes closed and nose open as he enjoyed her breast with a rough tongue, probing into it and flicking as fast as moth wings flutter under a light.

He released her breast from his mouth, straightened up, kneeling, and removed the rest of his belt. Braith watched, lips parted with quiet breaths of need.

Casnar bent and kissed her, slipping his tongue into her mouth. The kiss was brief, just to assure her there was nothing wrong.

He folded his black belt, twisting it with his powerful grip into a thin, spiraled cord, and holding its ends with both fists, put the middle in her mouth and tied those ends behind her head. He arranged her hair to be free of restriction, stroking her hair back with a hand and petting her face with both sets of fingers.

He pulled on his leather gloves again, gripped her thighs. One gloved hand disappeared between her legs, and his shoulder began to shake as he entered her.

Braith bit down on the belt and threw her head back, panting behind the leather. Casnar bent to kiss her forehead, stroking her right cheek with his left glove, then arranged her shirt to expose both breasts. His hand went to the front of his pants and he pulled out his girth, stroking it quick and hard as his right forearm moved faster. He removed his hand, fist-crawling until his arms were on either side of her ribs between her elbows, and gazing down into her eyes, he pointed two gloved fingers at his.

“Look at me while I fuck you.”

He swung his hips back and forward, down, black pants bucking through the gap in her shorts, keeping it deep and not sliding far enough out to give her that reverse friction. He wanted to make love to her and pressed in deep, held it there like he had seen in the vids, leaning against her core as he rocked rough and hard, making her loose her teeth on the belt while she supported herself upon her elbows, eyes narrowing at the seductive, bone deep, gratifying pleasure he was engaging her with.

He didn’t say a word, his green gaze intense on her steel, jealousy and lust fueling his dominion. She was powerful, weak, and succumbed to what he could give her.

And he was bound to her because she was life to him.

Lothairaxl, where it was both beautiful and ugly to live, and only the elite could succeed by devouring one and other. The cost of the haves and have-nots was complete depravity and lust for that which was desired and too complicated to own alone. Lothairaxl, a city of disgust, a city with inexplicable power and potential, home to expansive _navarres_ and both cruel and gentile.

A place that brought commanders to their knees, lovers in desperate fornication, and was both the best and the worst brought together in order to survive by taking away one from the other.

Lothairaxl. Lothairaxl. Lothairaxl.

What was left after war?

Nothing.

Casnar lay to her left in the bed, propped on his right bicep as he held her hand up to look at the gold ring Thane had proposed to her with.

He pinched his face up in a pucker and looked at it from another angle.

“I could do better.”

She took her hand away, rolling to her right, kneading her lip with her left hand, the one with the ring. Casnar rolled onto his right, pressing his fiery yellow chest and abs against her cold skin. He rubbed the length of her from her ribs to her top thigh, pressing his mouth and nose to the skin of her back by her shoulder. He still wore his pants, open, no belt, his gloves discarded somewhere.

Moonlight cast through the window on her and his face, bodies aligned in spooning on the bed. Her black hair was flipped over her ear, his yellow skin smooth and gleaming in the light. Green eyes looked up from their whites to gaze out the window at the moons as he kissed small puckers up her shoulder curve and onto the protuberance of where her scapula winged over the humerus. She was in no way frail, but defined, though she had often complained about feeling out of shape due to the business life as a working professional and no longer an ever-moving soldier.

He cupped her arm, moving his lips down her tricep as his voice broke the silence. “You will forgive me I hope. I’d wanted to go down on you, but you slept with that love of yours and I had to make a revision in my plans. I’ll make it up to you. . .”

She said nothing for a moment, then, “How did you find us. . . We’re not even in Kolyat’s penthouse.”

“I came to your tower early, saw you. . . I followed you two.” He leaned towards her ear, kissing beneath it and drawing her lobe between his teeth. “Then I climbed the other building after hacking into the Net and searching for recent reservations. . . Believe me, I did think he would be foolish enough to go to my nephew’s. . . But there was no one there when I went to check. . . So I came down and heard your laughter through the vents. . .”

She turned her head to look at him, chin coming off her hand. He gazed down at her, a warm look in his eyes.

“You climbed the vents looking for me?”

“No,” he replied, tilting his head forward and whispering in her ear, “but you have a _horrendous_ laugh, and I can hear you through the walls.”

She blinked away from him, rolling her eyes as her mouth silently formed a curse word, Casnar lifting her left arm to loop over his neck and scoop her breast into the mass of his palm, encompassing it to squeeze upwards and flick the nipple with his tongue. He set his teeth gently enough against the bud, making sure to only touch, and not pinch.

“You oversexed, fuck-loving drell.”

She lifted her arm and tried to conceal herself. Casnar pushed down her right shoulder, then added his other hand to her left, holding her still while he attended to her breasts, covered with the top. He worked over the fabric with his mouth, making her chill again with need, and his hot saliva in the warm air.

“I have had much opportunity to practice,” he said, moving from one peak to the other.

Her eyes opened from a wheeling head arch to his forearms, which were still healing, mottled by marks from the glass slivers.

She reached over his head and touched the forearm of his left, hand pinning her shoulder down.

His tongue paused, face tilting up to look left at her fingers tracing the cuts that would become scars on his skin.

His eyes read her profile, then went back to her fingers tracing the dry rifts.

Casnar pressed his mouth into the hair at her scalp, inhaling sweet shampoo and conditioner before adjusting to lay his head on the pillow beside her, and to watch her continue contemplating his self-inflicted wounds in the moons’ light.

“I love you,” he suddenly said, looking at her fine cheekbone.

Braith’s brow flexed. She didn’t repeat it back to him.

The next morning, the room filled with sunlight, Casnar stood with his chest facing the wall at the head of their low bed, buckling his belt, yellow back muscles bright and brilliant. The only mars on his meticulously well-kept body were those on his wrist as he paused to reach to Braith’s chin, and direct it upward with a swipe of his finger. She sat on the bed, facing him as he dressed.

She gazed up at him, silent, black shirt draped around her pale arms and neck, black hair over her natural part. A quarter slice of his face gazed down at her as he straightened, and the two only stared at each other.

Braith walked down the street, dressed in black professional button-down with another pencil skirt and her duck-tan coat from the other night. She had some light makeup on, her eyes cold and grey, but filled with emotion, and the black tousled hair swept perfectly over her brow to the right side of her classic face in the grey dawn. Her lips were loose, a narrowness to the flesh of skin, and she was gazing across the street at something.

As she walked, a skyrunner lowered, black though the windows were clear.

Three batarians got out, stripes on their faces, four eyes each.

Roughly they grabbed her, covering her mouth with gauze, and dragged her swiftly back into the skyrunner as her heels kicked. One slipped off and was almost left behind, until one of the batarians moving into the rear passenger seat next to her stopped, ran out, and grabbed the lonely dress shoe.

He dodged back into the skyrunner as it lifted and fled.


	25. Chapter 25

“She was abducted one block away from Nolyn Tower,” Casnar said, looking at the audience he held in his office on 500th. He glanced at Thane, rolled his eyes away, shaking his head as the former assassin’s lips twitched up in a resistant effort to put down a sneer.

The drell’s arms were crossed as he glowered over the heads of former Normandy crew at Casnar, who sat with one leg off the front of his desk, the other posting on the floor.

“I have received a letter this morning from an undisclosed source requesting five million in credits for her return.” He smiled, brandishing the Soterios charm. “She is obviously being undervalued.” The smile disappeared. “The ransom _will_ go up.”

“How do you know?” James Vega asked, eyes narrowed at the drell. He wore a tight fitting white shirt, in on his day off.

Kolyat was nearby, standing with his father.

Casnar gave James a condescending look. “It always works that way. You pay the ransom, they hold her for collateral, squeeze you for more because you’re willing to pay, and if you don’t, they start sending pieces. Of her.” His green eyes lifted to Thane. “You know this as true.”

Thane’s chest drove upwards with a deep breath. His eyes, black as these were, were truly expressive.

“So what do we do?” Kaidan Alenko was present, because Casnar knew he was important to her, and she to him.

“We set up a drop, requiring that we see her present. She doesn’t have to be given over, we tell them, though that would be preferred,” he added to the quiet stares.

“What good does that do?” Feron asked over by Kolyat and Vega.

“It tells us she’s alive,” Casnar explained. He looked like a college professor in a tan-white, cross-hatched sports coat with elbow pads and matching pants, a blue stitch buttoned up underneath, his collar open, revealing more of his violet tebris. He wore brown leather gloves, which matched, though these seemed eccentric. “We need to know she is alive and unharmed, and when we have an idea of how many there are of her captors, we go to phase two.”

“Which is?” Miranda Lawson asked.

“We hunt them.” Casnar’s gaze focused on Kolyat and Thane.

After everyone filtered out of the office, a few remained behind to witness Thane stride up to Casnar, grab his nice coat, and slam him backward on the glass desk, shouting at him.

“ _You_ were with her last! _Where is she!”_

Casnar tore his hands off and shoved him backwards, Kolyat grabbing his uncle and Feron holding back Thane. The two paramours of Braith Shepard glared back and forth.

Thane cleared Feron’s hands from him, calming himself and signaling with his palms that he was in control. He gazed across at Casnar, who gently pushed Kolyat aside and assured him it was okay.

Miranda Lawson, Samantha Traynor, and Conrad Verner stood at the door.

James Vega stepped back in with Kaidan and Jacob Taylor, roused by the noise and EDI 2.0’s alert.

“Your scent was all over her clothes and bed at the 2121 where I left her yesterday night, and this morning she is _gone_. How do I know it wasn’t you performing one of your sadistic pleasure hunts and letting things get out of hand?”

Kolyat turned his gaze to his uncle, eye ridges raising in surprise. “You were having an affair with Braith?”

Casnar rolled his eyes and shook his head away from his nephew’s gaze. He walked a few feet and turned, poking his own chest hard with his gloved fingers.

“We were fucking, yes. Is that what’s important here?”

“You had an affair with a practically married woman,” Kaidan said from the door, accusing him with a hostile stare, “and now she’s missing. You think you can pretend like that’s not a big deal?”

“She’s only commander of the most powerful fucking fleet in the city,” Vega added, crossing his arms.

“I fucked her, I didn’t kill her or abduct her,” Casnar sneered back.

Miranda and Sam Traynor both gave him a bullshit look, Conrad tilting his head and shaking it side to side in disapproval.

Casnar looked from Kolyat to Thane and back, seeing what was happening.

His nephew was losing faith and stepping backwards.

“Look, she was helping me.” Casnar held out his gloves, rolling his coat arms up and pulling down the necks of the leather glove sleeves. He revealed the ghastly rifts in his yellow skin, held these out for a second more for all the speechless faces to see. He then rolled the sleeves back up and tugged his cuffs down.

He set his hands on his hips under his jacket, flicking one up to point at the doors. “You can ask my chauffeur. He was a witness.”

“Uncle,” Kolyat started to say, his voice low, but hard. Casnar’s face turned as he snarled at him.

“I don’t care what you think! I didn’t do _this_ to her!” He held up a folded paper and dropped it on the floor. “I love her! . . I want her back as much as you do,” he said this to Thane.

Thane flexed and opened his palms, staring at Casnar as the drell turned away, hands under his sportcoat. The yellow drell vehemently cursed.

Suddenly Casnar raised his fists and smashed the desk, shattering the glass through the middle.

The force of his blow broke through three inches of glass.

His hands returned to his waist, and he stormed behind the divide of the office, where Kolyat had seen Braith turn the corner when first he met her for the interview regarding his original role as courier for Nolyn Enterprises.

Kolyat hesitated, looked at the others, his father, then strode after his uncle who had disappeared into the other, obscured room.

Around the white walls, following the corners of the zig zag corridor, Kolyat came into another wide office space, this with two vertical windows running to the ceiling and looking out into the middle of the tower and its opposing offices.

The building was hollow in the middle, letting light through a glass atrium onto gardens below, and it ran in circles, each level, one to a thousand.

Casnar’s figure leaned against one of the windows, tricep reached up with elbow bent over his head. His back was to Kolyat, whose father was coming in behind him.

Casnar blinked his eyelids, staring at the atrium roof below Braith’s former office.

“I raped her, you know,” he confessed to Thane and Kolyat, knowing they were there, but not making eye contact, not yet. “It was never her will to cheat on you, Thane. I took her against it, in your apartment, while you were away capturing that Keeper for her.”

Thane’s lips tightened as he began to stalk forward, but Kolyat prevented him, his gaze pleading for his father to let Casnar keep on talking.

And he did.

“I did it more than once,” he said. “She fought me, but eventually she accepted it. I wouldn’t let her deny me. Not once.”

“You troublesome, despoiled _dra’la_ ,” Thane hissed, pushing against his son, reaching over him for Casnar. “Depraved and despicable is what you are. I would _kill_ you if it weren’t for Irikah, but instead I will deliver you to my brother and _he_ will put you away.”

“You won’t,” Casnar said, gazing down at the glass reflecting the sun, “you won’t because she needs me as much as she needs you.”

“I will find her. Without your _help_.”

Thane turned to leave.

“You’ll find her in pieces, like Irikah, if you don’t use my assistance.”

Thane froze. He closed his eyes.

Kolyat turned to his father, putting his hand on the drell’s shoulder.

Thane turned, opening his eyes, and saw his son looking at him. He turned his face to his brother-in-law, who lowered his arm and put both hands back in his pockets. When he turned to Thane, Casnar held no mocking smile upon his face.

“I love her as much as you do. I loved them both. These are batarians, Thane. I know because I used them to cover up something I did before I met Braith. They will kill her without a second thought.”

“What did you do?” Kolyat asked, his voice low in whisper. He stepped towards him, away from his father.

Casnar’s eyes took on a plea. “I did something unforgivable, but it doesn’t matter. It will have no impact on Braith if I tell you or take it to my grave. These men have an idea how much I can pay and they will not hesitate to bleed credits out of me by blooding her. Now, I can get us started on looking in the right direction. I will stall them as long as I can, but you need to get in contact with Tiran and prepare the delivery for the first five million. It will buy Braith time, but we can’t give it to them just yet. They’ll give us twenty-four hours to put together the credits and convert it into cash. We arrange a drop-off and see Braith unharmed and alive, or all bets are off.”

“You said they’d harm her,” Thane rasped, taking another threatening step forward, “if we don’t give into their demands.”

Casnar walked over to meet him, looking his brother-in-law eye to eye.

“You’ll exchange her for _me_. I’m worth more than the whole of Nolyn combined with Braith Shepard. Durril has the power to make _kings_ out of _peasants_ if they have the means to combine it into fuel to replace eezo. Do you understand? It’s what they want anyways,” he said,walking passed Thane and Kolyat into the outer office.

“Uncle, I know you’re trying to atone,” Kolyat said, following after him, “but you can’t give durril to the batarians. They’ll be able to compete in the Traverse! You know they’re trying to rebuild the hegemony! Look, I like Braith. _A lot_. And I know how important she is to both of you,” he looked back and forth between Casnar and his father, then settled his stare on his uncle, “but I’m not going to lose you, too. There _has_ to be another way.”

Casnar blinked at his nephew, then turned his gaze to Thane.

“Rojelio would know the local batarian gangs,” Thane said.

He personally would have rather given up Casnar to a group of thugs bent on committing violence, but his son had made a case and his preferences known. And Irikah would have only expected Thane to protect her disturbed brother, even if he deserved to burn in hell.

Casnar closed his eyes, emitting a soft snort as he forced himself to consider having to see the one other drell who hated him only a little less than Thane did that very day.


	26. The Officer Behind The Badge

Rojelio Krios was the opposite of his brother, Thane. He was short tempered, gruff, and thickly built. It was why the Hanar wanted him strictly as _reinforcement_ , not enforcement. He had black lines over his eyes, face green, and wore a shirt that was one size too tight, competitive with James Vega who stood to the side of the cramped little office space beside Kolyat, Thane in the middle, Kaidan to the left of his shoulder, Casnar’s yellow head and sharp dresswear to Thane’s right.

Rojelio kicked his legs up, crossed his boots on a ruined desk, and flicked out a light and cigar.

“So let me get this straight,” he bit through grit teeth holding the stub. “You want to know where a small human goes in one-tenth of a city dick that’s ten inches long.”

The others waited, watching.

Rojelio’s eyes flattened as he pulled the cigar, removed it from his lips, and blew out, his thick arm up across the desk. His hand and eyes jerked to Casnar, sausage finger pointing passed the cigar. “Why the fuck is he here.”

Casnar moved his lips without any other part of his face doing same. “We were involved.”

Rojelio swiveled in his chair, feet on the floor already, and slapped both hands down as he leaned forward and antagonized the same-sized drell with a glare that would have given a krogan some pause for thought.

“Now why does that not surprise me.”

The cigar stuck sideways from his mouth.

“How is Sapphire, by the way?” Casnar smiled.

“I should shoot you in the face if it weren’t for my badge, pretty boy.” Rojelio pushed up, squawking the chair back. Both James and Kaidan, along with Thane and Kolyat, tilted backwards only slightly less, followed the chief of Colomvan District, Lothairaxl Enforcement Division, up with their eyes. Rojelio held his cigar to his mouth as he squeezed out from the small desk, black eyes burning into Casnar’s green, which did not hedge nor flinch. He walked out along the left of the desk, right by Casnar, who maintained eye contact with the Krios brother of Thane.

The office had an unpleasant blue which was meant to calm one’s temperament, but only seemed to make one feel more disgruntled and irritable. Rojelio was gruff and easy about saying what was edging him, but he was also one of those types who put on a big aggressive front in order to protect the important, softer things.

Kolyat walked around his uncle’s desk, hands in his pockets, as he examined the ceiling light, bright and harsh, then looked down at the picture holos on the desk, of himself and the rest of their family. Thane was among them as a small drell, lean and not even a quarter of the adult killer he was now, and Rojelio was taller, wider, with his arm thrown over his father’s gaunt shoulders in their youth. Kolyat was there as a babe, round faced, soft pataked, and cherubim, in the corner of a larger picture of him grown and kneeling with a half grin as an equally grown-up Tiran leaned over him by an elbow. And to the right of their picture, another juvenile shot of Tiran, next to the current holo of Vykka, the baby being held by his Aunt Iulia and another drell they had not seen since the war. And to the right of that, his Aunt Sapphire and Rojelio posed together in a seemingly happy marriage holo.

Kolyat picked up the holo of his Aunt Iulia and Vykka, studying the drell beside her. _Tor Vitale. . . Looks like Tiran_. He looked up and placed the holo frame back in its location. His gaze turned down to the desk, neat, with notebooks and tablets arranged geometrically with pens, a mug, and a few other possessions. Kolyat flipped the page of an open file, glimpsing a photo of a seemingly sleeping human male, and then realized the eyes were closed on a head shorn at the neck and missing its body. He rolled his gaze down to the lower half of the sheet, opening the cover further. _C.O.D. . . . Unknown. . . Found in chunnel. . . Animal marks. . . Scat. . ._

Kolyat exhaled softly as he considered what kept Rojelio up at night.

Things such as half eaten bodies were cause to give one nightmares from their sleep.

Thane cleared his throat, politely encouraging Kolyat to accompany them and not violate his uncle’s desk any further.

“I got deaths, murders, accidents, and just plain stupidity to cover in these city’s streets, Thane,” Rojelio pulled out his cigar, hand in his pocket as he fast stepped ahead of them, hunched as though trying to give the entourage the clear sign he wasn’t interested in any more hassle.

He glanced partly at the mix of humans and drell, family and rival among them. “Where was she last seen?”

“Just outside Basham,” Thane said, walking up along his brother’s left. Rojelio stopped and turned.

“Why aren’t you going to Basham then?”

“That would invite the Barend to get involved, and we don’t want them to be,” Thane said, clasping his hands behind him. “Plus, batarians would not take her somewhere so close by. . . The majority are over in this area.”

Rojelio gazed at him, face expressionless and seething hostility as the cigar burned down.

“Colomvan may be a shit hole, but just because a bunch of batarians steal someone doesn’t mean they’ll hide her all the way back home. Would you take a prostitute back to your crib?”

Casnar, to whom the question had been directed, didn’t answer, and turned his blank expression away.

Rojelio chuckled, smiling through his cigar in the corner of his patak, eyes lingering on the yellow drell, mocking. “Fucking asshole _would_ sleep them in his own bed, what the hell am I thinking. . .” he grumbled, turning and walking on, adding, “Only takes the ones he likes and fucks them in their homes.”


	27. Chapter 27

Braith opened her eyes, hair over her temples, a cloth tied over her mouth crudely knotted behind her head. She winced, light falling over her hair, making her strands shine as she tilted her face up, growing into a ghostly pallor with the brightness of the overhead lamp spilling over her.

She stared up through silver discs at the light above her head, silent, half in expectation of this, waiting. The sound of more than one pair of heavy boots scraping over thick flooring accompanied the arrival of at least two more bulky, heavily clothed figures coming through the darkness surrounding her in the pool of light. Braith lowered her chin and blinked out at them.

“You Braith Shepard, commander of the armed forces for Systems Alliance, now Galactic?”

She tilted her face, looking at the owner of the rough voice. She blinked twice as if to confirm yes. One of the shadows stepped forward and walked around the light to her back, went to her head, and untied the cloth. The batarian had feline feathering of orange, white, and black stripes over his face and around his mouth. He rolled up the cloth and hid this away in his pants. Braith looked left, closed her eyes, worked her mouth as she sighed through her nose. _Here we go again._

The other shadow stepped forward, hands swinging loosely by his sides. The light waved over his face and revealed a similar patterning as the batarian behind her right. A chair slid over loudly and the batarian caught the top, spinning it to settle with between his legs as he sat in front of her, out a few feet. Crossing his thickly brown sleeved arms, he held his head up, gazing at her with four feline slits of black and gold through his tall furry forehead, the nose pushed up in a smooth pug of face. He spoke with an elegant mouth ringed with fangs and long jowls.

“You’re here because we think we can trade you for someone valuable, moreso than a human who says she guided the galaxy to its conclusion of war with machines.” He paused. “We value your life so far as it gets us what we want, which is Casnar Soterios, your employee.”

“He’s a little more than that,” she said coolly, “but he’s a sadist and could care less about me. So your hope,” she said, tilting her head to the other side, “that he’ll give two fucks about my longevity is baseless and futile. He’d rather me be dead so he can move up with his life.”

The batarian didn’t even blink. He looked down and smiled.

“Do you know he waits outside your apartment tower every night, watching what I presume is your window?”

Braith’s expression remained blank. _Fucking Casnar._

The batarian didn’t look up. “Men have a weakness for power. In Sere Soterios’s case, he has a weakness for women who hurt him. Women who make him feel pain.” One eye moved up, followed by three others, focusing on her.

Braith closed her eyes again and tilted her head back, facing the upper darkness beyond the light. She slid her heel out, the other tucked beneath her metal chair, hands connected behind the back of this.

“We’ll start by waiting,” the batarian’s voice grated in the hollowness of the space. “We’ve already sent Casnar the first demand. We’ll squeeze him from there, and if he doesn’t care like you say he doesn’t, maybe we’ll start sending some pieces of you to make our requests. . . More stomachable. . . He has twenty four hours,” his voice softened, almost consolably, “feel free to make demands if you are thirsty or hungry. We will let you be comfortable before we have to get down to business.”


	28. Chapter 28

Casnar looked out a window, his face illuminated and grey. He stared, blankly, though behind the eyes thoughts were swirling.

Kolyat came through a doorway, shoes and pants scuffing like they used to when he was little to Casnar’s ears.

"Uncle Casnar?" he asked for his attention, black eyes reflecting the drell. "Do you need help? You know," he said when his uncle looked over at him. Kolyat glanced down, shrugged, then up.

"I don't need help."

His face remained emotionless, and he turned back to the view, hands in his pants pockets, lapels over his wrists as usual.

"I want Braith back. That's all I need."

"Braith. . . Is with my _father_ ," Kolyat said slow and deliberate, as he closed his eyes and lowered both ridges some at his uncle. "We need to get her back, but she was _his_ and I know she loves him."

Casnar's face turned further away, the back of his jaw moving beneath the brilliant, iridescent folds of violet tebris.

Kolyat pushed a little more, firmer.

"I think you need help, uncle, and I'm not trying to be disrespectful. . . You've always been a father to me, maybe more than my own." He pursed his lips, tilting his head left, more to see Casnar's facial reflection off the glass.

The drell looked as if he was about to break.

"I know it hurts to lose my mom, but I've noticed the way you treat yourself and other people, and I've noticed it's spiraling downward, not in a good way like it empties out the bathwater. . . Like instead of draining a tub and refilling it, there's only emptiness left behind. . ."

His pupils dropped to Casnar's glove sleeves revealed above his pockets and between his cuffs.

"I don't want you hurting yourself, uncle. . . Or anyone else for that matter. . ."

"Go away, Kolyat."

Kolyat's eyes widened. His mouth opened to speak, but he couldn't think of what to say.

Blinking, he closed his mouth and gazed down, lips tightening as his eyes twinged, wincing tight. Kolyat hesitantly turned and went out of the office, leaving his uncle alone. Casnar did not turn around to see him go, but maintained his face away.

The reflection in the glass had his eyes closed, his face calm, breathing. His brow ridges twinged once, and he pressed his head to the window corner.

He was alone in the room, colors almost blending with the paint and the light, making the space seem empty of anyone at all.


	29. Chapter 29

Kolyat came out of the white hallway and stopped, hands tucked in his pants pockets. He glanced left.

Rojelio turned, draping his arm over the fancy office chair back as Thane looked up from across the drell, both seated around a square table with Kaidan, James, and Conrad Verner.

"What's taking so long?" Rojelio asked.

"I just had a word with him," Kolyat said, looking at each of them. "He doesn't want help."

Rojelio slapped the chair end and turned his black and green crests on the back of his head to Kolyat as he stared across to his brother. "He's _your_ brother-in-law."

Thane pursed his lips, gripping his knees, elbows flared. With silence, he pushed off and stood up, making around the table.

Casnar breezed out from the corner office and stopped, his eyes dropping to each of them. "It's time."

Thane straightened, his arms held out to his sides. "Where?"

Casnar looked down at Rojelio, who raised his eye ridges and shook his head expectantly. "You going to make us guess?"

  
The fountains pulsed white turbulent water high up into the air, foaming and falling over their peaks like liquid snow avalanching down on all seven impressive spires into a basin twelve feet deep. The roar of the water was soothing despite their great power, and the wide pool into which the founts returned rippled, keeping a teasing reflection of the surrounding skyline. Below were the hanging gardens, the ice pools, pools for bathing, pools for play in hot baths. The sky was somber, goose grey like down on the back of a bird.

A loose sack, black, was pulled off Braith's head, stunning her eyes with white all around her. She was atop the fountain, on the ledge, her hair billowing gently, buffeting her face and tugging behind her ears. The wind pushed and tousled it over bare skin and she shivered, clothing free but for a scanty shield of underwear and black bra.

Rojelio looked up from his gun, whistling softly. "Tits on her are proud. Damn, Thane," he turned his eyes to his brother, briefly, before setting these back against the sights of the rifle. "Those must be fun. Sorry, if you don't mind my saying."

"Shut up, Roh," Thane said, eyeing down his scope, following from Braith's exposed body to the figure ascending the stairs leading to the topmost fountains. The bottoms of the pools funneled into one large pipe winding out from the bottom of the baths. He ignored this, sighting on Casnar's head, which faced the top of the pools where Braith stood waiting.

"Why would they strip her and stand her like that?" Thane asked himself.

"Probably so she won't feel freed," Rojelio replied, "though she got her hands tied to some bag at her feet. Nice shoes. If I weren't married to Sapphire, I might experiment myself with—"

"Focus, Roh."

Thane swiveled his sight back to Braith, standing before the massive fountains. She looked unharmed, isolated, vulnerable, beautiful. His heart throbbed. He wanted her back so much. _Let's get this done,_ he thought, looking back to the bag of converted credits, heavy cash in a leather satchel being delivered by Casnar himself.

The water roared upward and fell backward in a constant cycle to the surface, fed by the underwater piping. At the bottom of the basin, deep at its base, was a dark, cold opening that led to Lothairaxl knew where. Hair tugging aggressively at Braith's scalp, she watched Casnar come up, step by step, his head moving and rising slowly as his path brought his face into focus. She leaned forward, mouth parting in an effort to call his name, tell him to turn back, but her tongue had been burned and her throat could hardly make a sound aside from a hoarse breath, wheezing.

She was seated on the metal ledge, cold beneath her skin, sack in her hands, bag at her feet, hooked to her ankles and hidden from view. The batarians that had left her there were watching from vidfeeds throughout the tall posts for lights and speakers surrounding the plaza, which was empty, devoid of visitors, open and ominous, except for she and Casnar, who was still ascending the steps.

Kaidan and Vega tensed as they waited for Thane's sign with ten other officers from the Normandy, Garrus among them. He blew out his mandibles, quiet, aligning a rifle with the fountains below and panning left. "Why isn't anyone with her?" Garrus said.

Braith narrowed her eyes at Thane, at least in his direction. She couldn't see him, but she knew him well enough, were he to be anywhere, he would be atop the building across the fountains, holding the highest view, protecting her with his gun and keen sight. She hoped he was there. She wanted to see him seeing her as she willed him goodbye.

 _I love you_ , she thought desperately, _I love you. I'm so sorry. I've been so weak. I should have paid more attention._

Were she at war, she would have been keen to her abductors as they'd descended to take her that day on her way to Nolyn Tower, having refrained from riding to take the long walk and forget the pain in her head and in her chest. Had she only paid attention, instead of looking across the street at the ad in the window for serving again in the armed forces, a grunt, nothing more, nothing less. That was her distraction. A simple sign, and it had left her unguarded.

The wind blew back her lashes as she turned her gaze to Casnar arriving lower down on the steps. He hadn't looked at her yet. She could see the smoothness of his bright brow, the masculine dome of his forecrest, the rigid curves of his skull, and he was desirable, as much as Thane, if not more. To speak of it, Irikah Krios, sister of Casnar Soterios, must have been very beautiful if she possessed similar looks. Braith didn't doubt that she did, and that was why Thane had fallen after her. His first siha. Casnar was every bit as flame as what Thane described to Braith he saw in her, a human. But there was no word for warrior angels of Arashu made of male drell.

Braith closed her eyes, feeling the whip and pull of cold hair against her skin, hardening her nipples, goose pimples all over. She thought of what watery depth awaited her, and her knees nearly buckled at what she'd been instructed to do.

Only to Casnar, and those watching from high across and above, she looked cold and miserable, standing nearly naked in the wind of the cold sky and sun.

Casnar's face lifted up to her, his eyes green and bright. He could see her hair desperately calling to be touched, smoothed against her skull, coiled in his fingers. He could nearly smell her in his memories. The steps seemed to last forever, each foot interminable. Why was he not there yet!

The fountain irked him. It was like a monolith waiting to consume her. She looked like a sinful Aphrodite twisted before its frothing mouth, gaping at her, waiting to absorb her and pull her back to the gods.

Where was Thane when he needed him to be around for his women, Casnar thought. Why do his women, Casnar's own sister, come to such predicaments? _Must I protect the drell from himself, let alone me?_ He thought of Kolyat and how hurt he made him feel when he told him to leave. The boy only wanted to take care of him. Him! _A grown drell!_ He would make it up to him. He would seek help, if it meant they all came away from this free and safe. He had to get Braith first, then he would save himself. _Maybe then she will love me. Maybe then she will care and not give me this pain that makes me feel desire to live for her. For her alone. My angel. My new world._ His obsession was more about life now that he knew there was someone worth living through.

He got closer. _She_ was closer. _What's wrong with her? Why is she making that noise?_

Braith mouthed at him to turn away, but it was a strangled hoarseness. She watched him come up the rest of the steps quicker, his arms holding the satchel and moving faster, crossing a flat expanse of stone carved with smooth groovelines for channeling out water down and away from the escaping mists and what rain came down when it did on wet days.

He almost smiled as he thought to make a joke at her strange silence.

The food and water they had forced her to eat had scalded her from her tongue and roof of mouth all the way down to her belly. Braith teared, trying to speak.

Casnar came up the rest of the steps, striding quickly to her. His mouth opened.

"That's far enough." The speakers around the plaza trumpeted with a deep, gruff voice, though it was elegant in its demeanor, almost fatherly and kind.

Casnar stilled in Thane's scope. From across the buildings, they could hear, vaguely, the speakers being used. Thane lifted his eye and glanced at his brother.

"Can it be routed?"

"Would need an AI to do that."

 _EDI_ , Thane thought. He rest his rifle and flipped open his comm.

Casnar brought his face up to each of the megaspeakers, then back to Braith.

"She cannot talk to you," the ominous voice spoke onward. "She is as yet a prisoner and will be unable to tell you where we are or what we look like. We have planned for this," said the voice, matter of fact, "and though she is civil, more than we expected, we could not take the risk that she would go back on her word and betray our mission."

Casnar's face tensed as he scrutinized Braith across from him. She opened her mouth and he saw what they had done to her throat and tongue. Braith's eyes winced at him as she closed it, her fingers reaching up to her neck.

Thane saw the gesture, though he couldn't hear the words well.

"They've injured her," he spoke over the comms to Kaidan and the others.

"Is there anything we can get a shot at?" Garrus flanged angrily.

"No," said Rojelio, lifting his head away as Braith's figure bent and lifted what appeared to be something heavy in the black sack at her feet. "Mercy. . . What's she doing. . ."

"What they're making her do," Casnar said suddenly over the comms. He'd turned his ear piece, filling the others in with his words. "Attached to Braith's ankles is a bomb that is meant for Lothairaxl's center, which is evidentally accessible by the pipes of these fountains, which are cooling veins for some type of reactor somewhere deep below. They intend to have Braith deliver it in retribution for Bahak if I do not make their demands satisfied. . . It would take days for Braith to reach the reactor, but it would be her corpse. . ." He left out the fact she could no longer speak.

Braith held the heavy bomb in her hands, her knees pale and shaking above thin black heels. Casnar stepped towards her, his eyes holding her as he wet his lips nervously.

"Don't do that," the voice said, cautioning him and everyone now able to hear over Casnar's comm. "She is set to charge and detonate if you touch her or try to remove the bomb from her hands. Braith," the voice paused, then urged her gently, "please take your place."

Casnar's eyes carried up with her as she balanced and stepped up backwards onto the fountain ledge. The wind pushed, nearly knocking her over. Casnar flinched towards her.

 _No_ , was the look in her eyes as she rebalanced on the thin heels with a forty kilo charge in her arms.

"EDI, have you triangulated a location yet?" Thane demanded over his comm.

The AI's voice came back, filling all their ears. "Signals are bouncing off of several markers. Still pursuing, Thane."

"We can't do anything," Kaidan said, desperate.

"What do you want. What _else_ do you want?" Casnar said, irate. He stared at the speakers, looking suddenly back to Braith as he stepped again towards her. He held out his hand. No easy smile was on his face. Anxiety filled his stare. "I won't let anything happen to you. Please, stay calm."

His words were already empty, he knew, but he wanted to give her his voice, let her know they were with her and that she was not alone standing on that ledge in the little kitty heels, her hands holding a bomb meant to destroy the city they loved, hated, called their home. It pained him to see pain in her eyes. He had never hurt her, only given her pleasure, the physical kind she endured. He loved her, he hated himself, and he hated that she was being tortured by someone else without heed for end well-being. Seeing her so naked and vulnerable made him feel out of control, and it wasn't his own body. . . It was someone trusting him with _her_ own.

He felt impotent. He knew Thane felt the same.

Casnar removed his sports jacket. He spoke loudly enough to be heard by whatever means he felt her captors were listening.

"Let me dress her. It's obscene what you're doing."

Braith looked at him like he'd lost his mind. _This? Coming from that?_ she thought.

Casnar shrugged, allowing a small smile at the look of incredulity she comically gave him. It was disarming enough, and hearing no protest from her captors, he stepped up and hooked his jacket around her. The smell of his cologne comforted and soothed her as did the sudden warmth of the silks in the fabric that adorned him over his blue shirt. As he placed the collar in setting by her ears, he looked at her and winked.

 _Casnar! What are you up to?_ she thought, near panic.

"That's a five thousand credit sport suit, you have there," he said to her, said to the speakers. He turned and looked up, "Consider it a peace offering. . . A symbol of my willingness to work together. What do you wish of me? Now?"

He turned back to Braith and winked again. She narrowed her eyes at him. The speakers responded with the voice one more time.

"Leave the five million on the ground where you've left it since taking off your coat. Braith, retrieve the bag once Casnar has departed. A skyrunner will retrieve you and bring you back to us. As for you, Casnar," the voice paused, the next words said through a demeaning smile, "we will be in touch with next demands."

Casnar did a little bow and walked backwards from Braith aboard the ledge. The jacket was heavy on her, but she managed to step down when Casnar was a safe distance away, below the first landing, walking from her.

It was the hardest thing he had ever done.


	30. Chapter 30

The bullets dislodged, Thane rolling these into his fingers as he collected the ammo from his rifle. There had been no point in firing, he thought disappointedly. The skyrunner, black like any other, had descended, she’d gotten in it, and it had lifted her, taking with the credits and the heavy bag she seemed to be attached to.

Most likely they would use the drop-off location again. It was a valuable site, and Thane didn’t know the night Casnar had slept with her, he had been skating on flat soles below, trying to get Braith to join him on the ice. Thane tensed his brow and ignored Rojelio as he squeezed his shoulder and shook him.

”We’ll get her back, brother. Don’t you worry, kid.”

“Rojelio, you are not helping.”

He slapped him playfully on the back of his crests, trying to get Thane to relax.

Casnar walked up beside them, coatless, a pensive look on his face. Thane and Rojelio turned, the bigger brother pushing him.

“Nice of you to offer her a coat,” Rojelio said. “Five thousand credits, huh? Maybe I should quit my day job.”

Casnar grabbed his hand and pushed it away, lip snarling to the right at him. Rojelio chuckled, holding the strap of his rifle and smiling at Thane on his left who gave his brother a stern head shake.

“What, I’m just having fun,” he said, pointing his conjoined fingers at Casnar. “Prick deserves it.”

Thane ignored his brother and nodded to Casnar. “We saw what we could, heard what we listened to. . . What was her state. Something with her throat?”

Casnar looked right, pushing his lips out and in, hands in his pockets, then gazed at Thane.

“They injured her throat. Tongue, mouth. . . She can’t talk.”

Thane closed his eyes and almost did a little dance of inner agony. He took off his rifle and slammed it hard, twice, against a raised dark green concrete barrier beside them, causing everyone to watch his outburst of anger. He dropped the rifle. Rojelio stood behind him, expressionless.

Thane turned and lunged at Casnar.

The green and yellow drell locked up, Thane’s fists holding Casnar’s collar and sleeve, Casnar’s yellow hand locked on Thane’s wrists, restraining him. Rojelio laughed, deep, and held his hands up, not intervening.

Kaidan came forward, his face one of piss and fire. “Knock it off. Thane, you’re better than this. I know he slept with her, but we need to stay focused on Braith and not fighting between you two.”

Thane pushed Casnar away, both their hands in fists at their sides, leaning towards each other. Casnar’s blue shirt was pulled half out of his pants. Thane’s shirt hung over his shoulder. He glared at Casnar, the other not stepping back. Rojelio had his hands on the nape of his neck, smiling still.

“If it weren’t for him,” Thane thrust his head up at Casnar, “Braith would be at home right now, safe.”

Casnar thrust his yellow chin back. “Maybe if you knew how to fuck her right—“

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!” Kaidan and Vega both shouted, stepping in and separating the drell, Kaidan waving back Thane and Vega standing in front of Casnar, the yellow drell looking down at the beefy human and sizing him up. Rojelio turned and took a few steps, laughing with his hands rubbing back and forth on his crests. Kaidan held his hand up, turning towards Casnar.

“A little respect for the lady wouldn’t hurt.”

Rojelio turned, thrusting his hands at the offending drell, the others staring at him. “Didn’t you hear what he said?” He turned his hands down to his hips and glared at Casnar. “Drell gave her a five thousand credit coat.” He nodded his head disparagingly. “That ought to account for some respect,” he sneered.

Casnar took his stare from Rojelio and put it to Thane and Kaidan.

“That five thousand credit coat has a signal in it.” The others looked astonished suddenly. Casnar huffed and grinned halfway. “You can thank me now.”

“What are you tracking her with?” Rojelio asked, smile gone.

Casnar looked down at his right and raised his wrist, a small fashionable cufflet of blue and brushed silver below his hand. His left fell over it, pinched the sides, and a flat circular disc no bigger than a quarter shot out. He caught it, pinching this and holding it up. “It’s a mother pair. Find the daughter. Just need to put it in a mainframe. We’ll have access to the whole city and see where she goes.”

Thane swiped the disc out of his hand, held it for an observation before closing it up in his right fist and casting Casnar a silent look devoid of statements, until, “Is this how you found her at the 2121?”

Casnar gave him a smirk, hands floating to his hips as he poked his square chin forward above Vega’s shoulder. “No, Thane, I heard you fucking and she was screaming for me.”

Rojelio pursed his lips out, looking down as Kaidan pushed back Thane and Vega sighed, shaking his buzzed head while looking down at Casnar’s nice shoes. Reaching around Vega’s head, Rojelio slapped the back of Casnar’s, causing him to look over into Rojelio’s left hook, which turned the playboy’s jaw. Vega’s face was full of surprise and some fun as Thane looked on, Kaidan turning around to see the tussle to his left as Casnar shoved Vega towards Rojelio, teeth bared. Rojelio stepped back, waving his fingers, calling Casnar to him with a baiting, wide toothed grin.

“Come on, pretty boy,” Rojelio’s deep chuckle voiced and taunted, “you talk shit, let’s see you try to kick the shit out of me.”

Vega and Kaidan put their efforts into preventing Rojelio and Casnar from starting a fist fight on the roof of the building, Thane folding his arms over his chest and watching for a bit. He dropped his hands and turned left as Garrus came over, put his claw around the drell’s shoulders and patted his opposite arm in comradeship, starting in guiding him away.

“Let’s get back to Nolyn and see where they take her,” Garrus said, dropping his arm and hanging onto his rifle. He shook his horns sympathetically at Thane. “Did you have to take out your aggression on the rifle? I know it’s just a Viper, but still. . .” This produced a little smile from Thane as they walked away from Kaidan and Vega encouraging Casnar and Rojelio to walk separated and get back to their waiting rides.


	31. Chapter 31

Casnar blinked his yellow eyelids, leaning forward, eyes wide, mouth slack. Eventually he started to work his jaw muscles and sat backwards, hands gripping the station.

“What is it?” Thane asked, face wrinkled between his eyes’ ridges, perplexed and skeptical at what he was looking at.

The screen blinked a small clear light in the black square of the upper left corner. It was devoid of information. A small yellow grid of large rectangle with what looked like a column or street following it downward. Their reflections stared at the dot blinking back at them: Casnar, Thane, Rojelio, Kolyat, Kaidan, James, others blocked from view. They all leaned backwards, a wave of aggrieved puzzlement.

“It says here she’s in the _navarre_ ,” Casnar said, turning to look at the rest behind him. His yellow hands and bare cuts were on the smooth brown surface of a desk with a large black monitor showing them Braith’s location.

Or Casnar’s coat’s.

Thane looked down at Rojelio, whose broad face looked up to his brother. Rojelio was seated, dressed in casual clothes, a navy shirt with a yellow stripe through the chest, no officer’s uniform.

“Can you get us in there?” Thane asked him.

Rojelio’s face tensed, his black eyes slitting as he leaned forward in his chair. His hand turned over on the armrest. “You’re fucking kidding me, right? Port Mother barend?” He grabbed and let go of his own shirt. “I’ll lose my job.” He glared at Casnar, left, then right at the rest in theroom. “I got a family to take care of. Two, in fact,” he said as his gaze returned to Thane. “And I don’t need your help. . . I like my job. It’s all I’m good at.” He looked at the screen, opening and flexing his left hand. “This is bad shit for me and Sapphire.”

“I’ll take care of everyone,” Casnar offered.

Rojelio curled his lips in a sneer.

“Who asked you?” He leaned threateningly towards Casnar and stuck his third and fourth fingers at him with his right. “I don’t want your help. . . Shit, where’d it get me and Sapphire last time. . . And now _his_ lady’s being held hostage in Lothairaxl Port Security Barend! Because of you! . . . Asshole.” He looked back at Thane. “Don’t ask because I’m not doing it.”

Kaidan spoke, standing next to Thane who turned his face left to listen to the former marine.

“Do we know for sure she’s there?” He raised his palm to the result on the monitor, lifting his shoulders, wearing a blue striped, predominantly white polo and collar. His black hair coiffed and reflecting overhead lighting. “What if it’s just his sports jacket? I mean, what if they’ve moved her?”

“Can’t we just watch it and see if it moves?” James asked at the end of a low, yellow coffee table dividing the length between everyone. He was seated, looking at Kaidan.

Casnar laughed, his bright smile apparent as he lifted his chin in derision of the man’s question. Thane looked at Casnar, breathing out through his nose, before turning to look back at James who had narrowed his eyes at Casnar.

“We need to send someone physically there. Rojelio would be the best man since he works for Lothairaxl,” he gestured to his brother who was shaking his head, spinning right and left in his seat, arms on the rests.

“What about Tiran?” Casnar suggested, rotating his hands out and bouncing back some on his padded black chair. “He’s a courier.”

He faced down the table to the other end, where Kolyat stood behind James, between Miranda Lawson and Kenneth Donnelly. Kolyat pushed his lips out and dipped his head left in consideration, mildly approving. Thane lowered his gaze and shook his crests it like Rojelio, who was more vehement and raised his voice, sweeping his both hands outward.

“No way. Not getting Tiran involved in this.” Rojelio glared at Casnar who met the drell’s eyes. “You really are an asshole, thinking of sending a kid.”

Casnar spread his hands, leaning his head back against the chair.

“He doesn’t have to do anything.” He lifted forward, right hand thumbed at the monitor. “Just go in there and confirm if it’s the jacket or my woman!”

“Casnar,” Kolyat said scoldingly.

“You’re a loon, you know that, don’t you?” Rojelio said, fingering at him, then pushed up out of his seat and rested his hands on his belt, hooked to which was a brown and black pistol in his black utility holster. He grilled Casnar then looked across the table at his brother. “I’ll do it, but if anything happens to me, you better take care of Iulia and Sapphire,” he said to Thane, wagging his finger, then after a second glance at Casnar, added gruffly, “and keep his prick away from her, or I’ll be rolling in my grave. . . Someone get me another cigar while I go think what I’m going to pull on these pricks to let me in their garage.” He sidestepped between the chair and table, making around to go behind the chairs lining the right side and pushing passed curtains on his way to the back. Everyone gave the big officer room to pass, leading with his thick shoulder and right thigh.

“Thank you, Roh,” Thane called after him to his back. Rojelio waved him off with a flip of his trailing hand.

“Yeah, thanks, brother,” Casnar said, sarcastic. He chuckled when Rojelio muttered something from the back of the room before the door closed, sounding roughly like _Yeah, yeah, fuck off, Casnar, you evil son of. ._ . before the door closed on his remaining words.

Thane folded his arms and looked with the rest at Casnar, who shrugged and made a sour expression, then turned back to the monitor.


	32. Chapter 32

“Does happiness feel strange to you?”

“Yes. . . It’s foreign. Separate. . . Idle.”

“Which do you prefer? Pain? Sadness? Anger?”

“A little of all three.”

“Do you choose to feel that way?”

“. . . Yes. . .”

“Kiss me then. . . I’ll feel it with you.”

He rolled his lips into hers, stroking her back, feeling her through the slip. The sky was above them in the pavilion, Braith having finished her meeting with the dispatchers, the third for the day. Casnar hitched up her skirt, playing with her underwear, gentling under hips with his nails before he squeezed and hugged her tight in his arms.

“I need you. . . Do you need me?”

She didn’t say anything. She didn’t say _nothing_ , but she didn’t say anything that would make him stop. Not since the other night, when he’d coasted against her in the limo.

“You make me want to live. . . Not to throw it all away.”

“You must have slept with countless women before. . . What makes me special?”

“You hurt inside, and you like to feel pain. . . You’re not afraid of it. . . It’s a hunger.”

He bit her lip, drawing it between his teeth, slow and gentle, let go, kissed for more. She opened to him, frightened, sensual, and Casnar took out his heat and slowly put it in her, rocking, rocking slow. He could go faster, but he had her safe in his pavilion, way up high in Ritriny Tower. Only the gods were watching, high as they were. Under the sky. Brushing against its cloud base.

“I could fuck you, you know. . . I know you’d like it. . . But I want to go slow with you. . . Just a little slower. . . We have the time. . .”

“Casnar, we have to stop.”

“No. . . No, we don’t.” He flicked her lip with his tongue, rolling her over. “Ride me. . . Show me your tits and ride me. . . Hard, angel.”

He slapped her ass and firmed his grip, sending thrills through her legs, groin, toes, hell, even her hair. She needed to feel it. It felt so good. So wrong, but so good.

She began by riding, rising and falling as he commanded, touching her while she pleased him. To forget, to forget everything for a little while. . . Just a little. . .

“Casnar. . . Casnar. . . Cas. . .” She tilted her head back, hair falling, breasts moving under his manipulation. He squeezed and made them pucker, her heat tightening around him. The drell groaned, loving it, loving her, so instant, so filled with need.

“Keep saying it,” he encouraged, “say it over and over. . . It breathes life into me to hear you say my name.”

His eyes hooded over as she moved with more vigor, face up to the sky until he pulled her down, turned her over, and pushed deep as he may, making her curl on him, dragging her nails over his yellow muscle, taut, moving, flexing, bowing. He huffed as he moved his teeth lower on her breasts, making no indentation, just love caresses with the white edges of bone on her cold skin.

 _Love me,_ he thought, _love me, Braith. . . I need you. . . To love me. . ._

Braith whimpered into a cry as he burst, taking her with him.

“So good. . . So good, my angel. . . That’s right. . . It feels good, doesn’t it?”

“You’re asking me, not telling me for once. . .”

He kissed her cheek, not letting her get up, keeping her down with his body.

“Maybe it’s time I start asking. . . Or do you prefer I demand.”

He paused, gazing down at her, licking her lips with his tongue, fingers in her hair. He liked holding her still. She could move so well. He liked the control, taking it back from her.

“Cas. . .”

“My name. . . Is _Casnar_.” He tightened on her hair. “Don’t call me anything else, or I will make you add _Sere_ everytime you address me by my name. . . Angel.” He let her hair go, smoothing his fingers down her jaw as he formed a permanent memory in his mind—her this way, eyes closed, lips tense, beneath with him on top. _My angel. . . My mithra of protection._

“Tell me you love me.”

She did not. He smiled, rising from her, and walking naked to his shower. He would get her one day. He could feel her staring at him with his back turned, unwilling to deny it, to deny herself that she pleased him, and he, regrettably, pleased her.

This he remembered as he sat up waiting, waiting for the call from Thane about Rojelio, who was on his way to the _navarre_ at the Port’s barend.

Kolyat was with him, waiting too, in Nolyn Tower, room 542. He glanced at his uncle, lost in memory, and shook his head with a sigh.

“Where do you think they are?” he asked.

Casnar lowered his hand from his mouth and glanced at Kolyat. “Probably right under our noses, my boy. Probably right under our noses.”


	33. Chapter 33

Rojelio stopped and turned. The streets were noisy, dark. His hands were jammed in his pockets as he rotated from his waist and then his shoes to see Thane Krios walking quickly to join him. His shirt was striped, gridded, white and blue, pants darker, black shoes. He looked nothing like Rojelio remembered of the dark assassin that was his brother. Rojelio tightened his brown leather jacket around him with a roll forward of his shoulders. “What?”

“I would like to accompany you,” Thane said, stopping up next to him and glancing behind, then settling on his face. “I think you’ll need it.”

Rojelio untucked the cigar from his mouth and held his breath, talking through the smoke in his lungs.

“Thane,” he gestured at him, “I’m not doing that slippery, spidery shit you do. I’m going up to the door, brandishing my badge, and telling them to let me in. You know how I’m going to do that? I got a dead drellahna that was dropped over the side of a ship on Port waters. I gotta go there anyways in the morning to follow up on that case, so I’ll just tell them I want to quit my day early to go home and screw my beautiful wife and shit like that. They’ll understand. So go home. Go back to whatever you do in that fancy tower over there, and don’t worry about me. I’m a grown drell.”

Thane glanced down and up, a small grin on his young, thinner face compared to his brother’s. Rojelio’s cigar went back to his mouth and he gave him a stern look before he turned and started walking again. Thane followed.

Rojelio stopped and turned around, pointing back down the street.

“Get lost, Thane. Are we going to do this bullshit like we did when we were kids and I was going to the penny store?”

“She’s my wife,” Thane said, waving his hand, “I want to be there if it’s her. . . And I can help while you distract them.”

His brother stared at him a few seconds.

“Why’d you go and get messed with this human anyway, Thane? Drellahna don’t do it for you anymore? Or was Irikah the end of it all for you?”

The cigar was out of the mouth again, Rojelio’s hand still in his pocket. He watched Thane walk by him, and followed.

“Braith has always been important to me,” Thane said as he felt his brother’s hulking presence gained beside him again. “She helped me through my demons. . . The ones that came from avenging Irikah.”

Rojelio puffed his cigar, a faint wisp going up around his crests. They walked briskly, Thane setting the pace and Rojelio not minding.

“Sex will help with those.”

Thane shook his head, his smile shier. “It had less to do with sex than it had to do with her fear.”

“What,” Rojelio scanned left along the walls and alleys, a trained enforcer doing what was instinctual. He glanced across the street both ahead and behind them as low skyrunners whizzed by. “So you played shrink to her woe and fucked her on a therapy bed. Sounds a little too labor intensive for me.”

Thane’s smile vanished as he stared at his brother, who eventually made eye contact, though briefly.

“Am I wrong?” he said, biting his cigar again.

Lights gleamed off their dark colored crests, Thane’s only pleasantly lighter.

“Come on, I’m only kidding,” Rojelio said, batting his brother’s abs and upper back, “you always were too serious. Gotta lighten up, Thane.”

“I have,” he said, defending against his brother’s claim. “Braith taught me how.”

As he strode with his brother, Thane relived a memory with Braith slipping into the side of his vision, where he could see and experience the alternate reality that had been, while walking and talking, existing in the current reality with Rojelio.

Braith looked left over a bare shoulder, a small smile on her rose lips, black lashes blinking down and up under a curl of black, glossy bangs. She scrunched her pale nose, a smatter of freckles across the bridge disappearing, and then stuck her tongue out, a little pale, pink cherry folded under the edges.

Thane’s eye ridges creased towards the middle, his upper patak tightening as he smiled back at her. Her moments of silliness startled him, unexpected as they were, innocent and benign.

“You’re an enigma,” he said, raising a curved glass of clear alcohol to his lips and taking a drink.

“Why?” she asked. She made a face, turning her eyes together and sticking her tongue out again.

“Stop,” he said, feeling embarrassed by her childishness. “You make me question why I came up here to your cabin.”

She turned her face away to tilt a glass of white wine to her lips, poking hers out, lowering the glass away to clink on a surface. She rolled her lips in her mouth suddenly, running her tongue over these to taste the wine, then turned her grey eyes back to him under the framing bangs. She wore a red tank, dark like burgundy, and her black hair was long, let down over her right shoulder, a thick lick of it between her shoulder blades. The bottom of it under her blades curled up like sex feathers on a waterfowl.

She looked to her left at him, seated on her black and tan lounger, his well-dressed suit of dark interrupting the braid of tan band between the seats. There was a good foot of space between them, but his shoulder, though lined with his teness and hip, seemed close enough to want to open to her. She was dressed less to impress, more casual in tank and jeans.

“I told you to come up dressed for shore leave. You come up like James Dean. You’re just missing hard boots with a point and maybe a hat.”

He was dressed in a black leather jacket, long to his waist. Black fabric pants. Dark shoes of a polish. And a pop of white creased collar at his red tebris and green-yellow neck. He had put down his glass on the coffee table, glass and black, and laced his alien fingers together at the hint of his white cuffs.

“Tease me some more, Braith, and I’ll leave you to fight Reapers alone.”

She leaned left from her waist, eyes down at the table, while her face and lips stretched towards his tebris, Thane’s face magnetically turning to stare down at her mouth, his own lips parting in pique.

“You wouldn’t leave. . . Would you?” Her eyes and face turned completely to his, expression full of fear. . . Until she creased into a smile, leaning backwards at his eyes narrowing, but his face grinned at her deviousness.

He pressed his hand down into the crease of pads between them, weighing heavily through his shoulder as he placed his left arm across his knee, rubbing his conjoined finger’s longer tip against his thumb. Braith leaned away, giggling into the back of her hand as she rubbed the bridge under her nose, eyes squinting at him. Thane’s teeth showed in a lopsided smile as he regarded her, asking, “Would you miss me if I left?”

She grew a little more serious and sniffed as she looked him evenly on. Her head nodded. The ear above her left jaw showed. Her fingers touched tips together. “I would.”

“Why?” he asked skeptically.

“If I tell you, you might get mad at me.” She raised her eyebrows, looked away from his gaze to the table to pick up her glass and resume another sip.

“Well, now I’m intrigued.” He turned his hand over, curling his fingers like running through water. “Now you must tell me. . . I’ll be mad if you don’t.”

Braith swallowed her wine as she coughed through her nose, still smiling as she put the glass down and looked at him. “You really want to know. . .”

“I want to know,” he nodded once.

“You might not be able to handle it,” she shook her head, more black hair falling over her right shoulder.

“I think I can handle it,” he said, putting more weight onto his hand in the pads. “Now you _have_ to tell me.”

She giggled, posting out with her hand against his shoulder as he batted it gently away with his left. She did intrigue him. She made him feel happy, light, carefree. Always joking with him, acting foolish in private moments when it was just them and she knew half of him wasn’t looking, caught in his tragic memories. And she would interrupt him, just like that. He knew she was flirting with him. These humans, so oddly like pyjaks, but friendly and affectionate. She had the personality of a feline that would hunt, lay still and bask, then suddenly come over and wave her arms in his face and ask for attention, not for herself, but to take him out of his own.

She fanned some bangs out of her eyes with her left hand, looking at him seriously, so intent on her.

“Because then I’d not know who would be around to make you happy.” At his curious, somewhat defensive expression, she went on. “It’s because you’re so sad all the time, Thane. . . I just feel like someone needs to cheer you up. . . Someone to watch you and know when. . . And I know I can do it. . . Cheer you up, that is.”

His brow scales twinged and held. Leaning on his right arm, he reached his left arm across them, brushed at her bangs, brushed again but this time traveled on to caress her cheek, and when she raised her nose an inch, he leaned over all the way, simultaneously opening his mouth to kiss her as she opened her lips and nudged against the pressure of his skin. He caught her lower lip, she his upper, and both pressed, drew away a hairsbreadth, and suckled some more. It was tenderness she gave him, much reminiscent of Irikah. Two women able to show so much wrath, yet be so tender, fearful, certain.

“Did you mean that,” he said, pulling away, but only to give her room to speak.

“Yeah. . . You’re so grim, Thane. . . I just know I can be your light when you need me.”

“So she’s an angel, savior, whatever they call it,” Rojelio summed, wheeling his right fingers in the air. Their footsteps made lightly over hollow, wet streets, the hum of vessels and vents overhead and along the shops as they made closer to central Lothairaxl, the smell of bay water and Rojelio’s cigar in the air filled with light, dark, and steam. “You think she’s trying to save Casnar?”

“I think he went to her to be saved, Roh,” Thane said, squeezing his lip. He replaced his hand in his pocket after rubbing his patak with a delicate index. “I think he knew she would help anyone who asked.”

“She got savior complex or something?”

“It’s what she would want, if she had the courage to admit and ask for help herself. . . But she feels she can’t because of the responsibility that’s been placed on her. . . To be strong for others while walking herself to a distance she does not know the full measure of. . . She is a true angel, or more, what the humans revere of a cross-bearer.”

“I never got that shit, worshipping some guy who wanted to kill himself for everyone else’s fuck-ups.”

Thane looked at his brother, an expression of concern at the burly drell.

“It is because he believed that everyone deserved a second chance, and was not born inherently evil. . . Braith connects with this man very much because she herself was resurrected to bear the evil of the kosme on her head and shoulders. She thinks her purpose is to save everyone, myself included, and so long as she lives, she can fix everything.”

“Even Casnar.”

Thane nodded, facing ahead again. “Even Casnar,” he echoed.

“Sounds like a masochist to me.”

Thane’s upper lip corner twitched.

“Maybe.”


	34. Chapter 34

Braith's eyes blinked, vertically aligned to the floor as she laid on her right side, the fingers of a batarian brushing the soft front of black hair out of her eyes. They sat in the warehouse of a hangar, Braith left to be comfortable in Casnar’s sports coat, legs tucked to her belly and heels still strapped to her feet. The cold, insensitive light still coned around her, combined in Venn with a second, the batarian seated above her in a metal chair, curious about his human ward.

“Don’t worry,” the batarian said, roughing in a bass voice, “we’ll take good care of you.”

Braith’s grey eyes flicked down and up towards the shadowed face of four eyes, black and orange fur, haloed by the lamps above them. He didn’t smile, only plucking at her hair as though she were some pet with fur to be fondled. His head lifted to focus ahead of them, the light filling her eyes. She turned her away, facing forward to see more batarians dressed in mercenary gear, armed with holsters and straps of ammo coming in through the door at the entrance to the bay. Four spread out, two on either side, a fifth one, darker from the backlight entering, but stopping at the door and facing the interior. The batarian seated to her left, higher in the chair, pushed off his knees and stood, taking some steps forward. There was a silence, and then the batarian above turned and looked down at her, suddenly asking if she preferred her fingers or her ears. “Sorry, I was meant to ask. Guess I got distracted. . .”

Braith rolled her eyes, cheek pressed flat into the cold, gritty concrete. She grumbled something through the grey tape over her mouth.

“You have to take the tape off, B’kalah. . . Pillars of Strength, save me this idiot,” the far but closest batarian on their left said aloud.

Braith’s eyes pointed from her eyebrows down and up again at the softly lined hands of the batarian, bare and reaching for the upper right corner of tape on her mouth. He pinched it, tugged, and peeled off the tape, sucking at her skin and then the cloth wad stuffed in her mouth. Her lips stuck to the adhesive, lifting and pulling, and she grimaced when it hung half free, wide enough for her to speak through the open left side. Her eyes narrowed left as she curled her lips down in displeasure.

“I said neither,” she hoarsely grated.

“That wasn’t the option,” the batarian now kneeling in front of her said, his tall head tilted down to look at her sideways.

Braith turned her face upwards, the tape waving at her mouth’s movements to talk.

“You think you can just come over and ask me what I want to keep, you’re in for a particularly rude awakening. You cut me up, no one’s going to be around for the Reapers when they come back, and I’m your only case for an actual hegemony to come back into order. So back the fuck off and start thinking. You,” she turned her face under his raised knee, her throat dry and painful, towards the darker figure in the doorway, the one she assumed was leading them. “You want Casnar, why haven’t you asked for him yet?”

The figure stood still next to the left doorframe, the five other batarians in the hangar turning their faces to his direction. The figure shifted, moved, coming forth and filling the doorway, but then revealing in the first border of light as he was walking towards her, slow and unhurried. When he came to a stop, his stitched brown boots with endcaps and a prominent sole stood out to her eyes, he looked down at her face, features darkened as he was blocking the light. She could see he shared the familiar pattern of the one close to her, almost identical among the rest. His hands were in his heavy coat pockets, four eyes gazing down at her in silence.

“What?” she rasped, getting frustrated. “What is it?”

His hand removed from his pocket and reached down to grasp the jacket, her left shoulder’s side, bending down to kneel and paw further down her arm, grasping. His large paw wrinkled the fabric stitching, sliding the silk satin finish on the underside over her skin. She could feel him searching, not gripping to indulge some predatorial urge, but to find something, _something_. Braith’s eyes widened as she realized Casnar had given her not only his coat, but may have also given her some hope. Dangerous hope that was about to be taken away the more the thick hand moved, rubbing the jacket against her waist, her back, pausing over the concealment of her hip.

Four dark eyes simultaneously narrowed and his lips curled black in a fanged sneer.

He took his hand away, tightening in a straight line, and turned with a lingering glare at her face before heading back towards the others, walking among them as they fell in after him, passing more glances at Braith, between her and their leader. The moment all but the one batarian, B’kalah, left the hangar, the door slammed, resounding like a tomb of tones in her ears. Braith stared at the doorway, then up at the remaining batarian. He slowly turned his face to look down at her, opening his right palm in gesture at her.

“What’d you do?”

Braith lowered her eyebrows, glaring up at him, then returned her gaze to the door.

A little smile affected her mouth.

The batarians strode around a corner, keeping pace with the scowling lead one. They entered a rec and snack area, a room meant for unwinding between flights out the barend, lit by triangular cone lamps hanging from the ceiling on thick wires. A shortened, rectangular table stood in the middle of this, metal chairs arranged haphazardly around it, more folded against the slab walls. Puke green lockers hung attached to the slabs at shoulder height, a long, plain, counter running underneath, lined below with darker, metallic cabinets. The lead batarian walked towards the opposite end of the table, turned to face it, and tensing his mouth, slammed a tiger-striped fist down with a jolting _bang_.

“What is it, B’akura?” The batarian facing him diagonally across the table spoke, pulling back a chair with a screech and groan.

B’akura, about as even in height and build as the others, even the one female in the room among them, leaned over and spread his hands across the table ledge. Silent, he lowered his head into his thick neck and stared into the space between them, not focused on anything besides his inner thoughts. After a time, his throat emitted a discontented thrum, grating and displeased as he straightened. His gloved fingers kept in contact with the table’s surface. His gaze dropped to the scarred, black and brown veneer.

“The human has a tracker installed in the jacket. It doesn’t matter,” he said to the four others’ alarmed expressions, “but we can still use her for what we need. . . Casnar will follow her if we take Braith Shepard to the Attican Traverse. Hole her up in one of the mines on K’alatha, set a charge. . . I know it doesn’t sound like the original plan, but we gain some more time until we get back what was lost. . . Shepard can’t come back to Lothairaxl. She needs to be milked for as long as possible, then we can throw her away. The more we make using her as collateral, the more we can buy of this. . . Durril. . . Brach’atha, D’ovalh,” He stared up at two black and white, orange wisped faces. “Take her to the relay. Jump it to Danvers. It’ll require you boarding and accessing the mainframe. Just be sure to cover your asses. Thau’ra and Bra’calut,” he turned his gaze to the others each, “you’ll meet up with them on Omega. Pay your respects to Aria. In the meantime,” his gazed dropped back to the table as he lifted his hands to hang these at his sides. A purl came from his throat as he placated his brothers’ and sister’s apprehension, “I will attend to anyone who is caught following the Commander’s jacket, if not Casnar himself.” He paused to take a breath and expel it through his nostrils, tightening up his meat fists. “Go tell B’kalah to get the commander ready.”

Two of the batarians, the brother and sister, Thau’ra and Bra’calut, turned and headed back obediently to the hangar, following their elder brother’s request. As they turned the corner from which they’d come, the brother passed a silent regard to his sister, who shook her tall head and held her open fingers towards the hangar door coming up on his right. As he opened it and they made inwards together, one after the other, she passed a subtle glance over her right shoulder, back towards the rec snack area where B’akura spoke in deeper tones to their remaining brothers, Brach’atha and D’ovalh.

Thane and Rojelio came to a stop outside a wide hangar with an arched roof, doming down far left and right. Sprawled across in dark, thick letters was:

LOTHAIRAXL PORT SECURITY BAREND

Both drell, hands in their pockets, peered up at the sign, lit by separate lamps held in swooping U’s across the top. The walls were slatted, grizzly dark and green. Thane’s shirt stood out against it. A square glow of light came from two doors connected together with square window panes. Central Lothairaxl was relatively quiet in the bay, a whir of engines spinning by on occasion beyond view of the hangar. Thane lowered his gaze to Rojelio as his brother then looked left at him.

Thane quickly walked left, leaving his brother to enter the hangar alone. Rojelio removed his hands from his pockets, one cupped around a wallet, and strode to the door. He set his hand on the handle, and with one pause, a glance to the concrete, pulled it open with a ring and slipped inside.

Two salarians, one pale yellow brown, the other yellow green, looked up from their counter extending the length of the entry way. The yellow green one remained seated. The yellow brown one stood up to greet the drell dressed in bulky leather jacket and dark pants. Rojelio held up his wallet, flipped the top, held it a moment longer for the salarian to refresh himself and settle back to stand upright as he grinned and greeted the chief of enforcement, “Officer Krios, what can Port do for you this hour? It’s late and Central is a far ride from Colomvan District.” The salarian lay down a forearm, leaning casually on his elbow.

Rojelio nodded his dark green and black head, lifting his bulky shoulders a little as he tucked his hands into his jacket pockets. “I got to see some stuff about that body that was left here last week. You give me access, I’ll be in and out. Just got to check some things regarding the placement of those fingerprints and decomposition of the body.”

“Port barend is closed now, officer, but we can get you in. You mind pulling a favor for Zikeh here?”

Rojelio sighed, loud and rough, glancing left as he prepped to the same old song and dance with the crooked Port security guards. “Alright. Just send it to my tool. I’ll see what I can pull for you two.”

“Great,” the salarian smoothly replied, stepping to the leftmost end of the counter and raising a hatch to welcome Rojelio in. “You take care on the docks out there, Roj.”

Rojelio winced when he heard the incorrect pronunciation of his name. _Why’d Thane get the one syllable and I get four? Fucking lots in life,_ he thought, his aggravation unmissed by the salarian, who smirked at him as he turned his bulk through.

Following the thickly built drell with his wide, almond eyes, the salarian added, “How’s your sister doing at The Talyessin Threader? She move into her own shop yet?”

Rojelio stopped, half turning his head over his shoulder, eyes resisting the urge to narrow at the knows-too-well salarian still smiling back at him. “She’s good. Working hard. . . How’d you know she was thinking of it?”

“We saw your nephew talking with another courier. The one, Tiran, who looks like his uncle.”

Rojelio nodded. “Didn’t think you two got down to Colomvan too often either.”

“XED keeps sending couriers through. I think they’re going to move in on Nolyn Enterprises’ turf soon. . . You may want to mention it to your brother.”

Rojelio nodded slow. “Sure. Sure, I’ll tell him. Thanks, Terik.”

The salarian reached into his side pocket, wearing a grey utility uniform with a zipper up the front, and handed an oval fob on a chain to Rojelio.

He tipped his nose up in a curt nod, “I’ll get it back to you.”

“No worries, Roj,” the salarian, Terik said, holding a three-fingered hand up to stop him, “we know where to find you.”

Rojelio shook the fob and turned, setting boots in front of each other as he made a straight line to the right corner of the area behind the counter, where another door waited, marked in grey brown against the yellow wall. The salarians turned back to their counter and business.

In the spacious corridors of cooler air and concrete, the echo of his boots scuffing the hard floor and carrying to the metal ribbings of the concave hangar roof above, Rojelio held the fob tight in his left fist as he turned and walked right down the hangars’ interior connector. He glanced behind him, turned left at the next door that would lead him to open air on the barend’s waterfront.

The door opened, and the lights of the encompassing city scintillated on waving water trapped in the bay. Rojelio looked left and right, inhaling the salt air, and briefly reminded of Kahje, he pushed off bittersweet memories of taking Sapphire to the shore in the rain. . . The tangled love affair between her and Casnar. . . And the broken trust that made reliving it in his head a trip to nausea, sadness, and anxiety. He shirked up his heavy leather jacket, suddenly feeling bare without a hat, and jamming his fists with the wallet and fob in his pockets, he turned and walked down the right length of docks, glancing up to check the numbers over bay ports. The long-drawn garage doors were lowered and sealed, locked with archaic chains and key bolts. Lights cupped down from the lonely lamps above each port door, both garage and smaller entrances to the rights of these, some to the left and next to other non-vehicular doorways with about two meters usually in between. Rojelio walked passed the bay where the drellahna’s body had been found near a week ago, and kept going, knowing the salarians could watch him if they wanted to. Not that they’d care. As long as Rojelio kept his nose down in Colomvan when any one of the salarians’ friends came up on his district’s radar, Rojelio could do whatever the hell he pleased at the port.

 _Working the game,_ he’d called it to a rookie the other day, before his brother, humans, and Casnar had come in and requested him. Lothairaxl was only slightly better than the slums he’d lived in on Kahje. It was not a wonder Kolyat wanted to leave, and only ended up working for a bunch of drell criminals on the Citadel. Rojelio was familiar with all of the faces of _Panos_ , they having gotten their starts originally on Kahje. And salarians were also easier to intimidate than a gang of grown drell trying to break the law and run wetwork for rising and placed syndicates in need of freelancing from a glove of mercs.

He suddenly stopped, eyes narrowing in more of a wince of internal pain. He opened his mouth to release a sigh, some steam coming out, then shrugging his neck down, Rojelio continued walking, missing a bed and missing his wife.

The batarians were left of the chair, moving the commander by her shoulders and legs into a grey bag for transfer. Her head hung limply, eyes closed and mouth partly open. They’d made her dress again in the dark shirt and pencil skirt, this time having set her black heels aside on the chair. She was obviously out cold, a white rag left unfolded on the floor of the hangar nearby with the faint scent of chemical.

Thane’s feet lowered down on the concrete, bare, and green and striped, these began to walk forward, picking up speed, moving him across the room’s expanse, silent as a hunterracing towards their turned, bent-over backs. Completely unaware.


	35. Chapter 35

Thane ran at them, swift as a canine, only a whisper in his clothes catching air as his feet lift and fell, then were airborne. His fist came down on the back of the batarian’s skull, the female, stunning her into a clump of green fatigues and orange fur on the concrete. He led with his left into the cheek of the next batarian, a young male, tumbling him sideways as the third looked up from holding the bag ends, dropped these to shield his face with flexed fingers. Thane stopped, chest heaving, icy glare freezing on the cowering batarian. He leaned forward slightly, fists clenched at his sides, and raised his chin to look down his nose at the rigid hands.

“You have fifteen seconds to tie yourself in that bag. Remove her.”

The batarian was young and timid. He lowered his hands, staring at the angry drell and then quickly moving for the zipper, unseaming it, and lowering the sides around Braith. He went to move her shoulders out of the bag. Thane stopped him, holding out his hand sharply, sliced him off with the motion of wrist, and bent to pick up Braith, holding her waist over his shoulder as he stepped back and gestured for the batarian to proceed. The batarian unquestioningly crouch-walked into the liner, tucked his boots under the folds, then laid back, pulling everything over him as he collected the zipper edges together. When the teeth came into the seam, the zipper drawn upwards and the bag’s surface stopped punching and laid still, Thane turned with Braith supported by one arm on his shoulder and carried her towards the back of the bay.

He found some barrels to place her behind. She was propped seated up against the back black barrel, her head leaning to the side. Gently grasping her ankles and holding these, he gazed at her face.

Thane’s hand gingerly touched her face, held his knuckles under her nose, and caressed the hair away from her forehead.

He licked his lips and whispered her name imploringly. “Siha. . . Siha. . .”

She moved a little, uttering a small moan through her nose. Thane straddled her thighs, moving to hold her face, hands against her cheeks and under the edges of her jaw, lifting her face to his. “Siha. . .” She began to mumble and edge her face left, then back to the middle as she peered through slowly parting lashes.

“Thane. . .”

He bent his head to kiss her on the lips, holding her face between his fingers, relishing the coolness of her soft mouth. She was druggedly slow to respond, but her right hand came up to touch his hand, her left rising to his crest and tickling lightly over the smooth ridges down into his tebris folds.

She began to sit up, off the barrel, moving her hand to his face and kissing back. A breath escaped her nose as Thane hummed, controlling his urge to pull her knees up around him like they used to, laying away quiet between missions in getaways on the Normandy. Only she was in a skirt and button down collar instead of tight skin weave or blatant Normandy attire. Yet his fingers wrapped to her thighs over the skirt and slid, gripping, upwards, sliding the hem over her skin. Thane suddenly put his right hand against her opposite shoulder, holding her away from him, his chest heaving with lust. He was partially gasping, eyes wider and face appalled.

_We have to get out of here. . . I’m as bad as Casnar if I take her right now._

There was something about beholding her face underneath him, those steel eyes so catching, the face so appealing in its openness. He could see why Casnar desired her. She was vulnerable and needy. Something that screamed for intensity and to be possessed.

Thane blinked his eyelids as if seeing her for the first time. _What has become of you, Siha?_

“Are you ready? My brother is outside. No doubt a distraction.”

She nodded once, glancing behind to his right.

Thane strode over to the black bag with the batarian hiding inside, Braith quickfooted behind him. Reaching down, Thane caught the zipper and sides, jerking it up and lifting its contents into a stumbling, bumbling stand.

Thane tilted his head towards the bag, mouth close to the black fabric by the head. “Walk.” He drew away, holding onto the body bag and dragging it behind him as the figure inside attempted to hop and struggle to follow. Braith picked up a gun from the batarian male on the floor, checked it quickly and snapped its slider, then holding it in her left hand, followed after them. She stopped short, turned, and ran back to get her heels off the chair. “I hate these things,” she muttered.

Glancing at Thane’s eyeridge lowering stare at the heels in her right hand, she added, “They’re hard to find.”

Rojelio leaned against the counter overlooking the batarian’s office area preceding the snack and rec room, beyond that the hangar bay. He was on his right elbow, looking over his right shoulder at the stiff-lipped batarian glowering back at him. On the floor behind Rojelio were two lain out bodies, the brothers of the batarian before him on the other side of the countertop. Both downed batarians were on their faces, limbs sprawled out as if they’d decided to take a nap at the front of the office.

Behind the sole standing batarian’s right shoulder, Thane came through, looking casual even with a black shuffling body bag, tall yet hunched behind him, and Braith’s pale face coming through the door with light falling over her pale skin and dark clothes.

Rojelio turned his broad, dark green face at Braith and lifted an eyeridge with appreciation at her, ignoring Thane and the hopping body bag. “You look good for being kidnapped and held up with a bomb a couple days, Braith. Rojelio,” he extended his left hand, reaching over the counter, the batarian’s glare partly following as Braith reached forward to grasp the thick black stripes and fingers.

She stared a little at Thane’s brother, immediately hunting for facial similarities and coloring. _He’s big,_ she thought, glancing right of her at Thane. _No wonder Thane got the assassin’s gig. No way Rojelio could fit into a vent._

Thane looked back at her over his left shoulder, not smiling. _I know what you’re thinking,_ his eyes seemed to say.

And Braith could read it in his look. She apologetically shrugged and smiled, as Thane looked forward again, this time his eyeridges lowered in a non-macular frown. The eyes returned to their regular size as he stepped forward to the counter. “What have you found, Roh?”

Moving forth from under the countertop, Rojelio revealed a stunner of a pistol with thick grey ridges and leather sewn grip, a hammer uncocking as he held it up towards the ceiling and turned his broad face back to the batarian who matched his gaze with four eyes of his. “This one’s in charge,” Rojelio said, showing his teeth as he poked his jaw forward and returned to gaze at Thane. “But I know him. B’akura Hes’tor’th. He runs a small gang down in Bashan.” He tilted his crests at the batarian. “Got a few tips from him regarding your brother-in-law. . . Might want to be discussing what you’re going to be doing with his shares in the company. . .”

Thane’s lips parted as he directed his stare at the batarian in front of Rojelio. He hadn’t killed anyone yet, but could have. “I was going to inquire how you knew about Casnar and his relationship with my wife.”

The batarian glared back at him, lips curling down dramatically with disgust and showing pricks of sharp teeth. “That would make sense. . . Casnar is an associate of mine. . . Doesn’t like to share too well. . . Even if it’s not his property to own. . .” His dark eyes looked briefly to Braith, then Thane. He nodded his furred chin to the hulking body bag. “You mind?”

Thane brusquely turned towards the bagged figure to his right and holding the front seam in one hand, reached up with his left to pinch the zipper on top and pull down, revealing the young batarian male hidden inside, his face and four eyes blinking with surprise.

B’akura closed all four eyes and looked away, facing Rojelio who tilted his head with an expression of empathy at the elder batarian brother. “Figures,” B’akura said. He reopened his eyes and faced his brother again.

“What did Casnar do,” Thane said, fist still collecting the zipper seam and bag under the younger batarian’s face. “Now. You tell me.”

The batarian, B’akura, firmed his thick lips in a line, looking steadily on at Thane. With a glance to Rojelio who encouraged him with a nod, he opened his mouth. “Your brother-in-law, Casnar Soterios, has a predilection for stealing drellahna and dropping them off in the lower chunnels when he’s done with them.”

Braith stepped up to Thane’s right shoulder, receiving his glance as she stared, eyelids lowered in suspicion at B’akura. “So? What’s in the chunnels?”

“Bad things,” Rojelio offered in answer, folding his arms underneath his chest over the counter, the pistol laid lengthwise in front of him, finger still armed on the trigger. His head shrunk into his thick shoulder leathers. “Bad things that go bump in the night, Braith. Kind of make Reapers look like. . . Kids’ toys.” He added a toothy half smile and rough chuckle.

Braith and Thane glanced at each other. Their focus returned to B’akura. “Does Casnar do what I think he does with the females?” she asked.

B’akura nodded, then changed his mind and shook his head with a lopsided shrug. “What Casnar does with his women is my guess. . . You might know.” He left the rest of his thoughts unsaid.

Braith lowered her forehead, looking up through black eyebrows, taking a deep breath that lifted her shoulders. Thane held up a hand to her, giving her a pausing look before turning his gaze to B’akura. “Has he murdered anyone?”

“The drellahna in the bay might be the first,” B’akura said, nodding off to the front doors. “She arrived in our care last week. We did what we had to with her remains.”

Braith’s fingers went to her mouth, her grey eyes opening larger. The batarian at Thane’s left, still in the bag, emerged his head forward and stared at his brother. “The bite marks weren’t drell. It was definitely an animal from the chunnel.”

B’akura sneered at his younger brother. “Shut your maw, B’kalah. . . Can’t you see men are talking?”

The younger batarian, B’kalah, narrowed his four eyes at the other. “You wouldn’t say that if mahadn’t left you in charge of us.”

Braith rolled her eyes, exhaling through her mouth as she raised her hands to her hips.

“Why would you suggest Casnar had something to do with the drellahna’s death?” Thane asked the elder one.

“Look,” B’akura shook his head, “Casnar’s coming to us with bodies to be delivered. We don’t see what he does with them, just how we receive them. More get shipped off world.”

“Through who?” Braith demanded, dropping her hands into fists.

B’akura stared back at her, blinking.

Out on the docks, Braith threw her hands up in the air, walking crisply, barefoot, with Thane jogging to catch up. He stuck his hand out to collect against her lower back and the front of her waist, closing up beside her left on the hangar side of the docks, their silhouettes cast among blue and white light blinking spots in the distance. Rojelio’s figure emerged from the hangar’s visitor entrance where they left the batarians, and let the door close before he ran over to join them. Her angry gestures and body poise in the dark lighting was clear to any who watched on camera. Braith’s hands went to her hair, lifting the ends as Thane collected tight to her front, perhaps trying to say something to calm her down, Rojelio hanging close by with his hands out his pockets, low down passed his jacket.

“What do you mean we can’t report it?” she hissed through clenched teeth at Rojelio, dropping her hands. A wind blew, pulling her silk shirt against her curves and flats. The hair swept over her head behind her right ear. Thane’s body heat kept her warm, but she was so tense she didn’t feel it.

“There has to be a connection,” Rojelio explained, blunt. He tossed a hand behind him as he turned to face the hangar from which they’d come. “Taking some batarian moron’s word for it isn’t going to fly in Lothairaxl courts. _Especially_ if the drell paying them is going through your company to send the women. You’re going to go belly up if you press it, Braith. This has to be handled Casnar’s way.”

“Which means fucking him back,” Braith angrily added, her eyes narrowing in threat. Thane placed his palm on her collar. It had the affect of drawing her gaze to his.

“I’m glad we found you. We will keep a closer eye out from now on. No doubt we have been lulled by our fortune, Siha.”

“You call her the nickname of your wife?” Rojelio near gaped at Thane looking over at him, Braith’s face slowly turning to the officer who started to shake his head. “That’s messed.”

“Roh,” Thane furrowed his eyeridges with his warning tone. Rojelio continued to shake his head and walked left passed the two, taking their eyes and turning faces with him.

“I’m going home to Sapphire,” Rojelio flipped over his shoulder without looking back. “This shit’s going to keep me up all night. . . I might as well be under the sheets keeping her awake, too, if I’m going to be up. . . Take a cab and get out of here, you two. Port’s covered by those two salarians at the front. They won’t talk, but I gotta be holding my end of the deal. So leave the batarian fucks alone and go fucking home. . . Fuck,” was his last muttered word as he strode heavily off the docks and back towards the barend entrance, leaving Thane and Braith together by the water.


	36. Chapter 36

When Rojelio did get home, he came into the warmth of a quiet, well-lit apartment with pale walls and dark mouldings, stripping off his leather jacket and taking his affects out of the pockets, setting these on a dark counter, one after the other in an ordered line. He turned and hung up his jacket on a hook in the wall by the doorway, and turned for the doorframe to the kitchen, where he could hear someone clinking and washing about with dishes amid the smell of cooked meats and oils. He smelled his wife. He smelled her cooking. He could smell the remnants of Vykka, his sister’s baby having been watched over while Tiran and Iulia were both at work, and the faint scent of the young drell who had collected the toddler not long ago. He went straight for the wisps of details of his wife’s shoulder, arm, waist, and hip through the doorway, sneaking up on her from behind.

Sapphire was tall and slender in a yellow shirt cut low through the chest, her flat slopes smooth and off white. She wore white pants high along her waist down to her ankles, stove-piped and straight. The pants hugged her hips, which were darkened by Rojelio’s large grip covering both and pressing inwards with his thick fingertips.

Sapphire’s blue eyes widened behind the tints left over from Kahje, then fluttered closed, one layer after another as her husband bent and craned his head down on her right neck muscles, kissing up the chutes of scale layered along the border of her throat’s tebris. It was a silent greeting for the most part, aside from her lovely sigh from lightly tinted, cream pink lips laid with soft, pliable scale panels. Her right hand, wet from the warm sink water, reached up, bright against his dark crests, fingers feeling over his skull ridges before her conjoined pair hooked into his upper right crest and pulled his mouth deeper into her orange, vibrating tebris slowly filling with blood. Her smooth chest heaved upwards as his fingers moved under her shirt bottom, up to the sensitive folds along her waist either side.

These slipped apart the flushing folds, red, orange, and vibrantly yellow, tickling her and sending her the message he wanted to fuck and fuck her well. His thumb brushed along the smooth, leathery panels of her abdominals, and moved lower, playing with the top of her pants.

They twisted gently left and right against each other in front of the sink, white cabinets and appliances inserted in the small space and walls of the kitchen around them, black screens reflecting his clothed physique. There was a blue and yellow paint to the upper wall joints, which Rojelio always hated and swore about, but tonight, he was only interested in his drellahna and making her happy. His hand sliding down the front of her pants, behind the two buttons holding the panel taut to her waist, she leaned left in front of him, looking up from a yellow and white patak with crests layered in the same color scheme of one broad stripe on top of the other, her eyes seeking his face as she turned towards him and rest her left palm on his patak ridge, Rojelio pulling away only to gaze upon her with as intense a need as she had yet seen. He closed his eyes, tilting his head to put kisses against the crests on the right side of her temple, moving his soft, full-lipped kisses back to follow the curved ridges down to the back of her neck, Sapphire closing her eyes and turning her face left as her lips parted in a soft sigh, while below her pants, the bulk of his hand worked slow between her legs, massaging and separating the fiery tebral folds deep and out of view. His mouth wandered to her teness to say something lewd and dirty in her ear canal, Sapphire’s yellow and white lips curling in a smile as her short brow ridges winced together in need and excitement. Suddenly removing his hand from her pants, he bent his knees and heaved her onto his waist, supported in his powerful grip on her pant’s seat and tilting his head back to kiss her anticipating mouth with hot, lip-feeling, tongue-lining smothers. Her right hand gripped the back of his head while the other rested on the top of his chest and felt him through the fabric of his coarse shirt. Rojelio had swept her off her feet, now carrying her right of the kitchen to their bedroom door, and closing this behind them, a low, bubbly giggle coming from none other than the drellahna he was hellbent to make love to.

Dropping her onto the white comforter bed, more blue walls to drive him crazy with, he slipped his right arm out from under her back, still kissing with her as this same hand’s fingers unbuttoned her pants’ top, then free of that, he lightly tossed the hem of her yellow shirt up to expose the palm-wide, broad pale scales of her flat, rhythmically rising and falling belly. Sapphire’s hands moved to gather the hem of his polo, pulling this out of his pants with experienced fingers. She kissed him firmer, lifting her head from the soft pillow to call him deeper into her liplock, and Rojelio felt her upper arm, sliding his palm over her shoulder and along her neck to cup under jaw, turning his head for a complementing angle to dip his tongue deeper into her mouth. They tore apart only to each attend to their own shirts, Sapphire pulling hers over her crests with a twist of her head that waved the length of her body, her knee coming up to plant heel down in the bed comforter, Rojelio rolling to the side and shifting his legs under him to kneel tall and remove the shirt forward over his broad, muscular back, discarding it over the floor as he grabbed Sapphire’s shirt, winging it away and leaning over her with a deep chest chuckle mixed with her seductive giggle as she rolled onto her belly and angled her hips up to rub her ass, pants slipping down, against the bulge practically ripping from his pants’ crotch. He placed his right hand down by her arm, taking a long sweeping inhale of her backside up to the top of her crests, Sapphire eyeing him from behind her right shoulder, an expectant look if any did see. He flexed his middle shoulder muscles, spine groove waxing thicker, lowering down to kiss her cheek’s tebris, then bending his elbows, unloaded these to reverse towards her pants to pull these off, shimming them down her taut, curved hips, appaloosa yellow and white, finer laid, broad, seamed scales, not overlapping, but quilted together along her boa skin. Her ass was pert and thick, just the way Rojelio liked them, and removed of her pants, he let his tongue taste up her left thigh to the groove beneath the mound of flesh. He firmly cupped each cheek and gave the right one a teasing cuff before pinning both of his arms straight aside her waist and covering her with his dark green and black blazed lower back, Sapphire’s eyes lifting up and closing with her chin’s rise and turn as she faced forward and pushed back to get him deeper. With an arousing huff from Rojelio, he bent down to kiss her neck in three places, pulled out slow for a three second count, and then glided back inward. He was going to give it to her slow, but make sure when he came, he was all the way as high as he could go in her belly. The grip on him was tight, certainly a drellahna’s feel unlike any other. It was muscle. It was heat. And the sucking friction of her depths made him hotter than he felt when his blood’s temperature was at boiling. How could Thane pass this up? He let down his tongue to lap at her oil, venom beading along her skin’s scale seams. It tasted bitter, and it turned him on. Wrapping his arm under Sapphire’s belly, he lifted her easily and continued to slide in and out, slow, long, and deep. . . She was purring under him, he could feel it against his arm, in his ears, along his folds, over his skin. His tebris was as engorged as the stimulated lining along his lower legs, gently brushing over hers. She _did_ feel good, from the bulbous ribbing along her sides, expanded to signal she was ready for mating, to the trickling pearls tickling his ears as these precious sounds left her throat, percolating in her tebral organ. He thrummed and began the steady vibrations his father had taught him, building from his loins into his chest until it roared with the blood rushing in both husband’s and wife’s ears.

It wasn’t clear how much time went by, but Sapphire’s body was quivering in oil and shine, venom strong in the sheets, her fingers clutching Rojelio’s thick, sharply fringed tebris above his teness as she drew her knees up with his curling hug into her. A staggered cry uttered from her chest as Rojelio came, rumbling a low, releasing growl at his final surge. Her chest pressed up and fell down repeatedly, fast but calming as he held her, face buried in her tebris at her neck. Slick with sweat, oil, and venom, among other fluids in their clasp, Rojelio’s bulk shifted upwards as he pushed down on his hands, kissing his wife tenderly, her fingers still holding his crest and patak. She flared her yellow-white knees out to free him, a high sigh hitching as he pulled out and raised his hips backward, fisting in reverse through the damp sheets. “I’ll get a towel,” he said, voice deep and fulfilled. He pointed his green and black finger down above her belly, swirling the conjoined pair. “You do that thing you do to make those boys swim, get me an egg made into a baby or some shit like that.” She chuckled richly from her throat, swatting at his thick, sticky chest.

“Some shit like that,” she echoed, mocking his machismo affectionately, “what makes you think I haven’t already.” She pushed up on her forearms, sitting higher to gaze after his departed, nude body. Her eyes widened as he suddenly landed on the bed on both hands, face to face with her. Sapphire’s dark eyes squinted in a smile.

“No.” He stared still, body rigid. She nodded her head. “Yes. Yes?” Rojelio reared up, slapping his palms and beating his chest with much bravado. He stopped and stared down at her, face smiling glowingly up at him. “Is it real this time? Or are you about to—“

“I went to the doctor today,” Sapphire spoke up at him softly, the smile not dissipating. “Mitali, I’m pregnant.”

Rojelio didn’t know what to do with his hands. He moved them about as if trying to figure out through the motion alone some path for them to follow, and eventually they connected to her face as he lowered his head to kiss her, then lay down flat on top of her body. He jolted upward, jumping off her and throwing his hands out protectively around the sacred belly, Sapphire laughing at this comedy, rolling towards him on her right as he stared wide, black eyes at the flat belly inside which the treasure he had worked towards and prayed for so many years was finally there, _in that belly_ , where it was supposed to be. “It works,” he said, disbelieving.

“It works,” Sapphire agreed, chuckling as she slid her left arm around his waist and bent to kiss him more. His hands knew what to do then, sliding up over her back to hold the edges of her shoulders while he kissed her mightily, and thanked Arashu with each pluck of her lips.

Rojelio didn’t sleep that night. The lights out, and the light from the city street coming through the blinds on the window, falling over his face and chest, Sapphire lay curled beside him in a sheer gown cut to her chest and strung thinly over her shoulders. Her forehead was against his left arm, his right hand laid in the middle of him at the epicenter of his upper middle ribs and the start of his leathery mounds of pectoral muscles, his left arm up around his head as he stared at the ceiling. He had the look of a man in the headlights, a drell with a child possibly on the way. He didn’t dare let his hopes go, but he couldn’t ride them. It was the first time. Ever. He would hold his breath, he felt, until the very moment when that child was in his hands and looking into his eyes, breathing and healthy. And that very thought both elated and terrified him.

He was a cop. An enforcer. He had strings to pull, and strings attached to him. The thought of Thane and Braith’s problem was almost a distant memory, what with the news Sapphire had happily given him and he had disbelievingly received with childlike exuberance. His thick fingers drummed on his chest. His eyes and then his head turned, dark and gleaming in the light, green and black stripes from his crown to the back of his head moving like still frames under the blinds. He stared at his wife laying next to him. “Sapphire?”

She lay still, asleep. Rojelio rolled over some more to shift his left shoulder under him and pet her shoulder with his big fingers, so dark against her scales. His head lifted to move forward and kiss her brow as she moved her lips and sighed into the sheets between them. He breathed out through his nose, pursing his mouth. The sound of her breathing next to him. He wondered if with each of her breaths, he was able to hear that of his future daughter or son. His head tilted downward, the motion against the pillow fabric sounding like thunder in his teness, and he gazed at his wife’s belly. His right hand moved from her shoulder down her elbow and to her waist, and he spread his fingers as these slid down lower, over the fabric covering that special place. He allowed himself a little smile, a respite against the sharp anxiety gleaning at his mind and gut. Things were going to change.


	37. Chapter 37

_Four months later. . ._

Thane walked down the street, his head turned up and right at the towering building across the intersection ahead, taking up the corner block, a construction of smooth, silver and blue steel skyrocketing high into the clouds. He wore a plain brown suitcoat today, blue collar, matching pants with the jacket, hands in his pockets. Skyrunners and bilinears whippled their noisesome mass energy engines above through the towering corridors of buildings. Mists rose from the sewers and vents along the steel slick street, clean and spotless today from the regular purgings that occurred every so often at night. Some pedestrians—asari, salarians, turians— walked outside with him, passing only glances at the green drell crossing towards Ritriny Tower.

Casnar was finishing, literally. His lip curled up as he came, an anger in his face as he thrust hard one more time. The sky was bright through the windows despite being overcast grey, making his scalp, crests, shoulders, and back glow above the human woman he had bent over on hands and knees in the white sprawl of his bed. He pulled his cock out, holding himself, and released the back of the woman’s neck. “Get out,” he said, low and snide, nudging his head to the left in indication of the stairs leading up from his glass bedroom to the next level. The woman had dyed black hair, red roots just revealing, and a mottling of freckles on her back. A nice body, full breasted and curvaceous, but she was no Braith Shepard as she stood off the bed, collecting hastily her belongings off the table and clutching these to herself as she made away from the tall, yellow drell who didn’t even bother to watch her as she left, but stared at the soiled sheets while he held his limp cock in hand. He shook it, eyes moving from the sheets to his member, then dropped it, bent and picked up the sheets and wiped his hands off in these, proceeding from there to ball everything up, even pulling off the bedliner. He removed everything, turning his body to throw it all, one handed with a whip motion of yellow limb into the glass corner between nudes adorning the walls, hung by wire. He turned, setting his hands on his hips and facing the glass staircase, beneath which could be seen the stark grey concrete and solid steel of the penthouse menagerie’s founding roofline. Casnar remained still for a while, staring at the concrete through the glass, then sighed loudly through his nose and lowered his hands from his hips to walk up to the next level.

He proceeded right up another set of stairs, then left to the top level, where he opened a new cabinet of amber and wood, removing a thin necked bottle with a dark base, light from the sky showing it green with a darker liquid sloshing around inside. He unplugged a glass stop with a delicate click of glass against glass, pouring the contents, some into a mosaic etched tumbler. He paused, suddenly drank it, and spun left to hurl the glass at the far corner with a dramatic lift of his hand overhead, hearing it smash to pieces like frozen water, then turning back to the liquor jockey. He tilted the bottle to his mouth and poured, swallowing the thin line tumbling into his throat. The suitebell rung, an electronic, two-toned, pleasant sound, causing Casnar to spill liquid down his chin, tebris, chest, over his abs and crotch, splattering onto the top of his bare yellow feet and around these. With the heavy footsteps of a drell sounding over thick, reinforced glass, he walked down the first flight of stairs and followed the bridge landing ahead of him to the dimmer sections of the penthouse. He brought the bottle with him.

Thane was ready, waiting for him with his black eyes directed up to exactly about where Casnar’s eyes would be found. His hands clasped behind his back, red tebris folds dipping into the open collar of his shirt, buttons unbuttoned only one down, collar crisp and folded over the light brown jacket hanging from his shoulders.

The door opened. There was a moment’s silence.

Casnar stared at Thane, one hand on the solid steel door, the other on the frame. His eye ridges were bent forward, the lower half of his face set with lips unmoving, no cocky smile. There was an imperceivable aura of a scowl beneath the hooded glare. He blinked all four lids suddenly and leaned out of the doorway, checking left, then stretching his neck to look farther before turning his head right. As if not seeing what he was searching for, he settled back into his stance inside the doorway, glaring at Thane with a bit of a bored expression. He closed his eyes as he lifted his head, then bowed dramatically, whirling his right hand and pointing inward to the penthouse with his left arm holding a bottle, Casnar sidling right to let Thane through. Thane walked by him, into the penthouse, not even looking back at Casnar who stepped in reverse, allowing the heavy door to close and seal with a dull, thick click.

The glass hall was dark all sides save for the light up ahead into the nonconcealed portion of Casnar’s suite. Thane walked through it, the space of dark rooms unlit around him. His hands were moved to his pockets, lifting his suitcoat flaps as he took step after resounding step through the hollow glassway, pocked concrete seen in the shadow closer to the open source of skylight. Casnar’s figure followed, a bottle in his left hand as he tilted this to his lips and swallowed another pour.

“How is house arrest, Casnar?” Thane asked, stopping at the glass bridge and glancing right at the lower bedroom, messy, bed stripped of sheets. Casnar walked passed him, guzzling more from the bottle before lowering it down from his mouth.

“How’s my angel,” he replied, stopping to stand ahead of Thane by the stairs, his face’s profile turning to the right, right hand casually propped on his waist. “She missing being fucked properly,” he coldly suggested over his shoulder.

“Braith is fine,” Thane replied, not rising to the bait. “She has a new affiliate, thanks to you, which gives us ease of transfer of the durril from Rakhana. Now that the fuel expense has been limited, significantly, we have a surplus of Element Zero that has proven quite profitable in its selling off. . . Braith would like to extend her appreciation.” Casnar’s face looked up and turned towards Thane, the green eyes focusing. His feet shifted over the glass floor to present a sideways view of his tall, formed physique. His jaw had relaxed some, lips separating slightly and then firming as he decided not to speak and only wait for Thane to go on. The bottle was at ready, grasped by its neck in front of Casnar’s taut chest.

Thane took a moment to inhale and breathe out, his patak’s green lip corners curving up in a small smile.

“You’ve been invited back. . . As chief of operations for Nos Astra. It is Braith’s subsidiary firm for managing passive emergent activity in the Traverse. . . You will be close to home, but report particularly to Kaidan Alenko of 6th Fleet _navarre_. There will be no negotiations over this offer. I suggest, and highly recommend, you accept without condition.” His face turned higher to the next level behind Casnar, to the glass roof of his penthouse, to the bottom right bedroom. “I think this life bores you, Casnar,” Thane said, returning his gaze to his brother-in-law. He brought his hands together in front of his waist. “You can’t possibly be happy here. . . Why not go home, or somewhere close by.”

“You misconstrue my desire, Thane,” Casnar replied, gazing back at his brother-in-law. “My intention to leave Braith alone is well and good. I cannot be avoided, however, not with durril in my inheritance.”

“Maybe you haven’t heard,” Thane said, a thin smile on his face. “We have notified your parents of Kolyat’s intent to sell the estate directly into Nolyn Enterprises. We will be expanding with the addition of Nos Astra _navarre_ , and you will see to its care on a space station far, far away from my wife.”

Casnar raised the bottle to his lips and drank, not removing his green eyes from Thane.

“You will forever be Irikah’s older brother, Casnar,” Thane said, his expression of mirth fading, “and because of her, you are protected by my _and_ Braith’s _navarre_ at Nolyn, but don’t think for a second that this opportunity is a liberty by which to seek retribution, or see your way back into her good grace.”


	38. Chapter 38

His words delivered, Thane abruptly nodded his head, took a step back and pivoted, leaving for the door.

Alone on the landing of the glass steps, Casnar lowered the bottle, watching Thane leave. A whisper of air from the hall followed, the door opening, closing with the effect of a hard reverberation felt through the glass that could be felt even in Casnar’s bare feet. Sinisterly, he smiled and turned his attention to the bottle, whipping it up and catching the neck after it spun before his chest in a perfect compass. In a rich baritone, he started to sing to himself. A lusty croon of song came from his lungs as he admired the label on the bottle. “Angel, fall over me. . . Angel, I’m dying to see you again. . . Angel, my angel. . . My angel. . . .”

He walked the steps to the next landing of the bar, and set the bottle onto the glass shelf of the cabinet for storing his liquor. The gold label, cut out where curves of a woman’s form on her knees, stretching languorously upward with one arm reaching to the top of bottle, the other elbow bent with her hand beneath her short hair, was very similar to Casnar’s dreams of the woman he desired. Braith Shepard. A yellow finger traced the raised paper curve of the cutout’s left waist and breast before his shadow passed across it.

A dark intention to the expression of his cruel face—cruelly handsome and cold—possessed it. Something right caught his interest, and he looked down.

On a white desk, the one from Nolyn he had replaced, only to move to his penthouse, a datapad with raised rubber borders scrolled slowly through the newsfeeds on its lit screen. Come up, coincidentally enough, was the newsflash XED and Nolyn Enterprises had joined the companies’ forces together in a strategic plan to grow the _navarres_.

 _Good_ , Casnar thought, _they will have at minimum six hundred new vessels by which to make delivery and space travel safer. New affiliate. ._. He wondered at who it could be, though Thane had said it was in thanks part to him that Nos Astra could be made possible. Had his talks with the asari paid off, Casnar wondered, before his next breath stuck in his throat.

_GALA HELD IN HONOR OF VENTURE WITH XED/NE ALLIANCE_

_Suna Date To Be Announced_

_All Nolyn Enterprises And XED Employees Welcome To Join_

_See Inlet For Details [EIC Required For Login]_

_Lothairaxl Port Security Barend Officials—Please See Pending Inmail_

Casnar hummed and set the datapad down. The glass menagerie contained a warm silence as he stood, naked, upon the top level of his penthouse.

Turning left, he followed a glass corridor along the perimeter of the upper suite, leading from the bar to his personal rooms in the back, where not even Braith had been invited to sleep. Yet.

It was an immaculate glass chamber, empty but for the sight of Lothairaxl’s mists rising from the streets as daytime burned it off. A single bed was in the room, the furniture untouched and flat as if it had only been recently unpackaged and laid with its sheets, perfectly smooth as the blade of a knife, tucked into the fitted large frame beneath.

To the left corner of the hall’s entrance, behind which would be found the wall between the bar, was a closet attached to a bathroom, nautilizing counterconcentrically in two divisions of space. He entered the closet, heading straight for a black bag hung from a tab over magnetized tube rod.

Casnar disconnect the bag’s top, holding the upper half with one hand, cradling the lower half with the other. It was heavy, weighted as water. He turned and carried it out to the bed, gazing at it between his hands.

The bag’s fabric was threaded and smooth in his grip. He laid it on the bed, posting over it with his arm. With his other hand, he unzipped the top clasp, the _zim_ of the thumbtab’s teeth chatting up at him as his eyes waited in anticipation. He had the look of a waiting lover, removing the dress off a hot body.

Spreading apart one flap, arranging the other just like it with the tender movement of his hand setting down each wing on the freshly wrinkled surface of the bed, Casnar’s hand floated to the middle of the dress and caressed from the bust to the middle, trailing fingertips over stone beads.

Millions of tiny glass prisms threaded in overlapping, stunning design over the bodice and down the length of the skirts. The layers divided in the middle, as the overlap of flower petals to a bud that had refused to open, but could be by the movement of the legs its was designed for, or the hand that wished to gain access. The straps were heavy, the bosom cut low but its scalloped edges cut high to a framing collar that was stiff and bordered by the straps. The bust held its form, as if ready to cup her breasts inside it.

It was a mirror dress, meant to shine and reflect light. It was as close to armor as he could make it, though the weight was not as heavy as what she would have worn in wartime. Its curves were meant for hers. Its length meant to show off the long shins halfway down beneath her knees. It was a gloved fit he had memorized while he fucked her, grasping, cupping, measuring her dimensions with his own hands from her bust to the seam of her legs. From her ass down to her knees. From her lower back to middle of her neck. Each squeeze had been meant to memorize. Her hair would come down to just above her chin, and there would still be priceless neck to see. Thane would not be able to resist it. She would not be able to either. No doubt she would be avoiding searching for just such a dress, the extravagance almost too much for that shyness she held in reserve. She could dress like a slut behind closed doors, he knew, but out in public, she wanted presence of that calm, controlled, put-togetherness. Well, he had done the research for her. And if he couldn’t fuck her, he’d at least dress her with what she wanted and denied herself. He knew the dress would command her, like he had. And she would not even know that he had sent it.

“It’s as close to a fuck as I can get,” Casnar murmured, admiring his craftsmanship. _And it will only remind her of me when she puts it on and stands in those lights of cameras and vids at the gala, with only light to be seen, and me watching from my darkness. . . My angel. . . She will miss me then._ . . . .

Beyond him poised on the bed over his dress for Commander Braith Shepard, the sky was misted and cloudy with sun and some color coming through. Distant silver peaks of towers, reflecting golden light and gleaming brighter off of pronounced, hard edged surfaces, speared through the thicker cloud cover, and a long bar of purplish black glowing lighter could be seen expanding along the horizon’s window of cloud layers.

Casnar sat back on his heels, sliding his palms from the dress onto his hard thighs, stare lingering at the gown beside his left as he raised it to take in the view.


	39. Chapter 39

Outside Nolyn Enterprises, the street’s airfare was zipping by, overhead pedestrians heading busily to and fro along the flat and silver streets. The doors of Nolyn Enterprises reflected as these opened and closed.

Thane strode down the lobby of the tower, his expression fixed to the floor. He gazed up to his right when he reached the center of the lobby, and stepped to an open vertlift.

The doors closed and above, the lights for the levels glowed.

Stepping out from the vertlift onto the sound absorbent carpeting of the new nest of suites, uniformed employees walking by without glancing up at him, Thane tread left, passing along the border of the pristine wall lit by subdued sconces a foot and a half tall, about head level with those walking about the floor.

The glass partition of floor to ceiling windows either side of the sliding glass doors ahead showed through these Braith in a professional suit of light grey jacket and pants, patent white heels, her black hair curled above her chin above her white, sharp collar, creased and folded over the jacket’s neck rise. She was holding her arms open and carefully positioned to receive a cream and yellow clothed bundle with small, round, striped face of green, yellow, and baby blue joining towards the sleeping expression of a newborn drell, being delivered from the confident arms of Sapphire Krios, tall and elegant, standing next to a very big and very proud Rojelio Krios. Kolyat was standing in front of them on Sapphire’s left, he dressed in dark fabrics of a brown vest and muted green pants, his blue and tiger-striped forearms held out with hands on his hips as he, grinning, watched the tentative hand off, and suddenly stepped forward to support Braith’s arms as she connected with the bundle, his own face warping to anxiety as she, inexperienced with holding an infant, much less a drell’s, tried to accommodate the unexpected weight.

“Christ, he’s heavy,” Braith exclaimed. “Are all drell infants so heavy when they’re born? I mean, jeez. . . Labor must be quick.” She glanced up between Sapphire and Rojelio as she repositioned her body under the bundle and squatted it up. Kolyat moved a little closer to support both the baby, newly named Tringad Krios, in the woman’s arms, gazing down into the sleeping, round face of small jointed scales as smooth as butter and just as soft. His right hand supported Braith’s left under the head of Tringad, his left arm supporting her right forearm, aligned with the bottom of the bundle of blanket and infant. He glanced at her face, too, taking pleasure in seeing the commander of galactic armies so uncertain and ill-confident with something as innocent, non-threatening as a babe.

“I guess you won’t be having one anytime soon,” he answered her question jokingly.

Braith glanced at him with an uneasy half smile, then set to studying the infant they both supported. “You’d think I’d remember how strong drell are compared to humans.” Her face hovered over the infant’s, lips slightly parted. Scenting her breath and perfume, the eyes opened, black and sapphire striped. The pupils directed towards Braith’s face as the sets of eyelids reopened after another blink. The face twisted up into a bawl. Braith winced, baring her teeth in a cringing grimace as she glanced hintingly at Kolyat, and he carried the weight of the bawling infant from her arms. Braith’s hands went to her back as Thane stepped up and slid his arms between her elbows. Kolyat turned with the baby as Braith looked to her right, finding Thane smiling back at her with a humoring expression that bespoke compassion and pity. “Hey. You’re back soon. . . How’d it go?” Her hand reached up to the oily-shining black necklace along her clavicles, over the shirt collar and under her jacket lapels.

“It went,” he replied, voice rough.

He squeezed her waist, arm hooked through the elbows as he stood between her and Kolyat.

Sapphire held Tringad, eyes closed and no more bawling. She gazed benignly across from she and Rojelio at the couple. “So when are you two thinking of tying the knot?” Sapphire asked. She glanced at Rojelio, who looked at her. “That’s what humans call it, right? Marriage? Tying the knot?”

“We are engaged,” Thane said with a nod next to Braith, who turned to face Sapphire. “It is typical to wait a year, not less than half in human timeframes, but we intend to do it after the gala and other events have settled on our timeline.” Braith held up her left hand, showing the simple gold ring for Sapphire to see.

“Ah,” the drellahna nodded, her voice a ruched velvet and appealing to hear, “and what will you plan for the occasion? Something simple or something big?”

“Maybe something simple,” Braith said, her lips in a gentle curve as she tilted her head towards Thane. He turned his face into her hair and inhaled.

Rojelio chuckled, fingers stuck in his blue jeans while the thumbs hooked over a brown belt. He was looking at Braith when he spoke, “I bet something small, seeing you two are in it for a lot of trouble most of the time. Any chance you thinking of inviting the rest of the family? Obviously us, of course.” He gently elbowed his wife, rolling his crests towards her and Tringad as she glanced at him.

Braith kept a tight-lipped smile on her face as she shook her head.

“What you see is what you get,” she said to Rojelio, Sapphire, and Kolyat’s slightly perturbed expressions.

“I guess I’m not surprised,” Rojelio said. “You wouldn’t be seeing him if you had parents around.” Sapphire gave him a scolding stare.

“I’m not sure what that means,” Braith said, narrowing her eyes up at him. “My parents might have been—“

“It means they would have been upset not being able to have kids without some type of genetic therapy, and you certainly wouldn’t be able to carry a drell fetus with your physiology,” Rojelio said back, rather sternly, his neck bending as his crests rolled right. “A drell fetus weighs at least ten ounces in human standard, so you would be in quite a bit of pain if you had to try and carry that through only four to five months’ gestation.” He paused, glancing at Sapphire who had acknowledged this with a raise of her delicate eye ridges. “The fact is: parents expect children. You wouldn’t be able to produce without having a surrogate. . . If the therapies even exist,” he added, shrugging his broad shoulders under green and purple polo with a white collar.

Braith had that troubled look on her face again, as if she’d just picked up a new weight. “Thank you for the information,” Thane said politely to his brother. He gave Braith another reassuring squeeze. “You are honest as always.”

Kolyat hid a grin behind a curled ball of blue and black knuckles, looking at his uncle sideways from the corners of his eyes as he faced Braith and Thane. Rojelio shrugged again, removing his left hand from his pocket to cup puzzledly at air. “What?” He looked at Sapphire shaking her head at him. She turned her face to Braith.

“You two look nice together,” Sapphire said velvetly, leaning her head forward some of her baby. “It doesn’t matter what route you take so long as you get there.”

“You’re awfully open-minded,” Braith said to her.

“I don’t mind cross-species relationships. It’s challenging enough to be here in Lothairaxl without love as it is. . . And don’t mind Roh. . . He isn’t blessed with the same refined qualities of his younger brother.” She winked and waved the back of her fingers at them. Rojelio lowered his flattened, dark eyeridges, hand replaced into his pocket.

Braith grinned and looked at Thane as he turned his face to her, their noses almost touching. He grinned too.

Alone in the office, Braith leaned over a glass desk that was thin and light in comparison to the one Casnar had broken (so she’d heard). She reached across it, nearly having to lunge over the wide top, and caught a book she had been leant by Miranda for clothes shopping for the gala. She stopped when the book was under her face, held in her hand, and looked up to the front of the office.

Only a few employees were crossing the glass windows, everyone about their business.

Braith stared at the hallway visible through the doors, as if waiting for something. When a minute went by and no more bodies could be seen walking through, she sighed through her nose, looked down at the book, and sat.

Flipping through the pages, she looked through some of the richest gowns that were just too ridiculous and huge for her to even consider. Red ball gowns, crowns, human women modeling white gloves or various other colors. She flipped to the shoes, scanning down the list of pictures.

She shook her head, black tresses swinging, scooped around her face.

She went back to the dresses. _Evening wear. Special occasions. Wear the gown of your dreams with fitted bodice measurements and forgo the urge to simply cash out in whatever ‘works’,_ she read in the printed copy. Her gaze scanned down to a blond woman with a high chiffon, delicate neck and shoulders, arms holding onto a balcony rail behind her as she leaned forward with a smoky look in her gaze at something or someone off camera. The gown she wore was thin strapped, a halter, joined in a curved, wide v above her cleavage, and seemed to sparkle silver and pink on the page of printed old-fashioned ink. She had a belt mid waist and gown pooled around her feet. _It looks more like a wedding gown,_ she thought. _How the hell does she move in it? It was just a model posed in a setting, so it didn’t matter if she couldn’t move in it. Probably doesn’t even fit her. . . That’s why she looks like she’s going to kill the producer. . . Practically hanging onto the rail to keep from falling when she goes unconscious._ Immediately Braith classified it as impractical and closed the book, dropping it under her desk. The face of a glamorous pearl-toned woman stared hotly up at her through the glass, her lips stunning in red lipstick, carved dress a matching color, brown eyes boring into Braith’s with dark hair chocolate and styled in a twentieth century immovable coif. Braith removed her white heels and placed both of her stocking feet over the woman’s face.

She placed under her jaw her left knuckles, feeling daydreamish this afternoon. Her lips pressed out and to the left, thinking about Thane’s two worded reply regarding his visit to Casnar. She glanced her eyes down at the glass reflecting a long parallelogram of light from the windows in her new office. They had not switched her back to the 500th.

She took the walk through Bashan District to get to Thane’s and her tower. It was near dusk, the steam releasing from the street vents. She could call a cab in the morning, having left her skyrunner at Nolyn, and was set to start getting back into shape after finding the baby drell, Tringad, too heavy to hold. Hands in a light overcoat, strapped around the waist by square tortoiseshell buckle, pockets on the sides under these, she walked with her eyes down, sneakers on, and smiled at how unfashionable it must look. She honestly felt as if she were supposed to go streaking suddenly, and thought of how Thane would think of the idea of nude men and women running through public areas for kicks and giggles. It was dark down in the streets around her, but there was enough light by which to see and the flybys overhead kept a steady illumination of the mists rising up in front of neon signs. Braith listened to Lothairaxl about her, hearing the soft scuff of her white sneakers and the running of water. She glanced behind her out of caution, and missed the dark pass of a running figure ahead. She looked forward again, still walking. A dual-toned squiggle of sound came from her sleeve and she lifted this from her left pocket to stop and respond to her omnitool’s alert. “Siha.” Thane’s voice came through the channel electronic but fresh. Braith held her finger hovering over the receiving icon.

“Hi, Thane. I’m just walking home tonight.” There was a sigh from the device.

“Braith, we’ve been over this how many times. . . Don’t answer. I know. Look, I’m going to send you my skyrunner to your location. I’ve dinner on the appliance and we are about to eat.”

 _Shit_ , Braith thought, remembering Kolyat, Sapphire, Rojelio, and she couldn’t recall how many others had been invited to their apartment tonight for a family celebration of Tringad’s arrival. She would meet the sister and several cousins, were she to arrive on time. “I’m sorry, Thane, I completely forgot.”

“I can tell.”

“I’ve been distracted. Don’t worry about the skyrunner. I see a public kiosk up ahead. See you in a few.” She closed the comm and broke into a jog down the side of the street before Thane had a chance to protest. Her hair blew back behind her temples as she focused on breathing and keeping her strides lifting. It felt rocky at first to start running again, and she had only performed the exercise when she was in training for Systems Alliance, but here she was, feeling the exertion and a little thrilled it was not too taxing.

The cab kiosk was lit on one side by a glow from an open garage, showing off some yellow light. Braith could smell sweet lubricants and fluids from the big, rectangular opening. Slowing into a walk, she approached the stand-alone kiosk rising as a smooth cylinder, with a cap and screen, from the right edge of the silver street, and held up her omnitool to interact with it and confirm that she had a method of payment and a designation. Another dark shadow ran by on the opposite side of the street. This time, Braith did look up and left to the opposing wall of a tower.

She didn’t see anything besides a vent emitting a pillar of steam from a grate to the left in the surface of the corridor between towers, and a dark alley lit at the far end. But then his figure appeared in a dark trench, his yellow face mustard dull in the dusk.

Braith’s eyes widened and she stood still as a statue in the stare of the basilisk. _Her_ basilisk.

He came across the street, hands in his coat, green eyes steady on her. He had a smile, and it was the kind more curved to one side of his face. He was so confident. No arrogance to be seen yet. He looked kindly, as if he coming by and happening by unexpected chance upon his sole desire. Her.

“Can I take you home?” His words were so deep, virile, calming and claiming at the same time. She knew he wanted to take her home. Would if he could. Braith realized she had raised up both hands in a defensive hold ahead of her, as if she were prepared to fight. She was leaning away from him, even though he had stopped four feet out and could not reach her, but if he lunged. Her eyes became less wide and she tried to regroup her commander’s demeanor. “No,” she stated, firm, glancing right along the street, as if looking for a witness, then back to Casnar. The ache between her legs had started, and she was full of fear and arousal. He was here. _Here. Of course, he would be here, coming out of a dark alley at dusk with a dark trench coat and his face smooth and suave and relaxed. . . Fuck!_ Braith never felt less of a woman and more of a girl in all her life since joining the Alliance.

Her lower lip set firm against her upper, yet her jaw betrayed the tension she felt from having to force it not to quiver and open to him.

He lowered his gaze, tucking his chin, head tilting as he looked at her sneakers, up her ankles, gradually making his way to the steel eyes. His lips parted, jaw loosened, and he spoke, low and warm to her. “I’ve been thinking of you.”

“I’m sure.” The words jerked out of her throat. She deliberately tried to be cold and demeaning. She took a shivering breath in through her nose.

His tongue pushed against the back of his lower teeth as he stared at her with all-too-knowing eyes. “You haven’t thought of me?” he asked with a damning, handsome smile, tilting his head to the left. His shoulders moved.

Braith flared her biotics, stepping back into a ready position. A click and a snap with a light of jet blue flare shone in front of his face as his head bent towards the cup of gloved hands.

He narrowed one eye at her, the other eyeridge arched as the first cloud of smoke lifted from his suck inward and subsequent puff outward of his cheeks, drawing again on the bedi that released a pleasant, floral fragrance. He lowered the mass energy lighter to his left pocket, holding a small covered tray of gold with a tile of some white, colorful Japonisme art on the top. This he snapped shut with his thumb and lowered into his opposite pocket, holding the red stick of fragrant smoke between his lips. He raised his chin, exposing the violet folds in a gesture she would appreciate, a flaunt of invite among male Drell to their females. The chin lowered as he stared at her through the wisps of smoke. “You’re a bit defensive.” The bedi twitched in his mouth as he spoke. His right hand raised to remove the stick and rub a large brow scale by his thumbnail inside of his right temple.

“I’m just a little cautious seeing our history. Plus the fact I was abducted on a street only four months ago.” She raised her omnitool, hit the input for her reservation to be finished, and let the kiosk make its charge to her credit account. She kept her gaze down. “I’m taking a cab, but thank you for the inappropriate offer.”

“Inappropriate.” He swept out his bedi in the right hand, furrowing his eyeridges at her and poking his head forward. “Inappropriate how? You think I’m going to fuck you? After blackmailing me for four months and then kicking my ass beyond the Terminus? Fuck you, Braith.” He turned and began to walk, his right, down the street. Black shoes clipped the surface.

Braith looked up after him. She touched her left temple with her fingers, hesitating, then reached out at his back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t. . .”

“Think,” he called back over his shoulder snidely. His tall tapering form kept walking, crossing through a low mist and his crests and crown haloed by overhead lights.

Braith stood by the kiosk a moment longer, telling herself it was okay. And then she stepped into the middle of the street. “Casnar.”

He stopped at the sound of his name in her voice. He turned, painfully beautiful, stark, and with a jaw she could see clenched in passion as well as rage.

Her eyes were wide and tortured. That need was there, and so was her will to fight it.

Her face darkened as his shadow fell over it.

He was face to face with her, breathing, the certainty of his expression imposed on by resistance. His lips were apart, his face full for her to see, black pupils small circles in smoldering green irises. The bedi was down in hand by his right. His left remained stuffed in his pocket.

It came out to hang by his side.

She could smell his scent mixed with his cologne. She was clutching her coat at the chest, holding the overlapping stiff panel. “I have not been faithful to you,” he said. “I couldn’t. I tried to forget. I did.” She nodded, as if this all made sense and she accepted it.

Casnar wet his lips, firmed these together, made a centimeter forward, but then looked away. “I want to do terrible things to you, Braith. I. . . I can’t control it. . . The desire. . . But I am physically capable of it. But. . . I want you.” He stared down the street, avoiding her face. As if this might help in a little way.

Her hand left the other to touch his coat, rough, soft, hard underneath. That was him. Lights shown on them from behind Braith. Casnar’s head turned to see the origin of the lights. “It’s your cab.” His eyes stared into the glare, pupils pricking. They pointed down at her.

She had moved close to his mouth. Eyelashes soft and lowered. “No.” He stared at her mouth, her steel eyes snapping wide. She pulled back as he suddenly changed his mind and locked lips with her, running his fingers in her hair and cupping the back of her head, holding her still to kiss her while she struggled to find an angle to complement his powerful mouth. The taste of the sweet, floral scented bedi was on the walls of him, in the slick of his hard tongue, hot in comparison to her coolness. Her lips were cold, tongue small, teeth smaller and she tasted of nothing but her natural chemical. The perfume on her skin made him breathe deeply, and she felt the heat of his air through his nostrils, straight nose bumping and pressing across hers as he changed to each angle. _Fuck_! his mind was screaming at him as he smelled her clothes, her breath, her perfume and hair. _Fuck! What are you doing!?_ And the same shouts were in her head as he pulled away, mouth hanging open, chest heaving under her palm, staring at her. The need was profound. There it was. Glaring between them. He pulled away and turned, leaving her gaping, breath catching on a staircase, falling one step but landing every other. Her black hair was tousled, fallen some into her face over her left eye. She stepped forward, after him.

In the headlights of the skyrunner, a woman in a trench coat and white sneakers stared opposite it, shoulders rounded, one hand low below her belt, the other pulling back from where it had rested on his chest, fingers folding inward to close around the memory of his firmness beneath the coat as the claw of a creature curling stiff in death. She turned her sneakers first, followed by her body as she started towards the skyrunner, face still fixed towards the street along which she’d walked alone earlier and that he had left her for. Braith eventually made it to the cab. A door opened. Closed a moment later. The beams from the front lamps moved right in a sweep of the empty street and lifted to the tower. In its pass over the alley, a figure backed away from the beams’ reach. The lights gone, a profile of someone, or something, peeked out into the street towards the direction that Casnar had stormed down.


	40. Chapter 40

Braith sat with her hands between her legs, staring right to the table covered in red cloth and patterned with large diamonds detailed with faded pictures. Her food was eaten, but some still remained. She had changed into a black cardigan with a low V cut, and the paleness of her face gave her lips a redder intensity, though these were swollen from having been kissed so hard by Casnar. She had an antiseptic aftertaste in her mouth mixed with the acidic flavor of tomato sauce, and a meatball lay in a lump smear of it on her plate by some interesting green produce similar to broccoli but with stiff, starchy green flowers. The plate was white with a thin red pen having inked swoops and lines around its rim, and dipped shallowly to hold sauces. Her fork and knife sat crossed together to the left of the plate. Warm conversation could be heard around the table, laughter, and the deep roughing voices of drell, the velvet trilling of the drellahna, should have made for good effect, but Braith only broke into a smile now and then to keep up her pretense. Inside, she was stirred and turbid, screaming at herself for what she had done. It wasn’t like she had gone _seeking_ Casnar. . . But she did try to kiss him, backed out when he said no, and then he’d kissed her, and she’d kissed back. He just had to be there to break down her defenses. She hadn’t seen nor spoken to him since the abduction, and though it was his sportscoat beacon that had found her, she had never even thanked him, only sending Thane or Kolyat with the messages, and engaging in group conference calls with Casnar included by mute line, never permitting him to speak directly to her, and never speaking directly to him. Black screens were often used to blot him out, or she would call in by nonvid comm. Thane had told her he was basically rotting into himself during his house-arrest. They had, as Casnar accused her in the street, blackmailed him, and allowed him to keep his stake in Nolyn, to keep his job, and even be laden with more busy work just to keep him. . . Distracted. . . The durril had been won by going to his very parents, informing them on their son’s connection to shipping bodies, a mystery that still had not been solved per where the bodies went, why, or what had happened to them, and Braith demanded they hand over at least sixty percent of the estate. They had done so, not wanting Casnar to be thrown into incarceration, and Braith had leaned on Kolyat to make him decide to invest his interests in the Soterios estate into Nolyn Enterprises, since it was now considered a legitimate family gig. No one found out how Casnar had been delivering the bodies through Nolyn Enterprises’ shipping. He would not tell Thane nor Kolyat. Even when Rojelio eventually threatened to throw him in a penal pen, Casnar called upon Lothairaxl Port Security Barend, whose agents informed Nolyn Enterprises they would be happy to take Casnar on as a chief officer and let him guide the city’s pursuits to harboring more business and _navarre_ vessels. That was why Braith pushed for Nos Astra through her connections on Illium. Having a Shadow Broker for a friend had its benefits, but even Liara T’Soni would not touch Casnar, citing irregularities with his personal business operations that were bound to stress her network, and net worth. It was Liara’s idea to give him the _navarre_ at Nos Astra and to have him report under Kaidan Alenko, who by all means was Braith’s alterior second man next to Thane now that 6th Fleet was allied to her (thanks to Casnar). And if Braith could use her seduction over Casnar, he was not going to turn away from her and go rogue. He was trapped, and so was she and Thane.

Thane was relaxed in his seat across from her, finishing a good laugh after a story from his brother, Rojelio, on his right. Rojelio held a fork in his left fist, and knife in his right, leaning over to talk with family at the end of the table they had arranged in the living room, moving back the couch and shifting all of the furniture to accommodate such a large gathering, compared to the two of them. Thane looked across the table, his left shoulder hooked over the back of a wood chair with stitched, tight latticework in its back support. He had on a light cream shirt, his buttons along the front undone two from the top. His right hand on his pants leg, the other hung in the air. His smile present, calmed somewhat at what he saw across from him.

Braith stared at her plate. Her left hand appeared, the ring present, and she reached for a stem of red wine. Feron leaned over from her right, nudging her arm with his elbow, a smile on his blue and red, multi-colored spades of scales over his head and neck. “What’s eating you? You not going to finish that meatball?”

Braith lifted her wine glass and pushed the circular base’s edge against the meatball towards his waiting blue fingers, and Feron pinched it, plucked it, and dropped it into his mouth, chewing and turning to his right to focus on the pretty drellahna that was Thane and Rojelio’s sister, Iulia, who was nearly the same patterning of greens, blacks, reds, with some yellowing that neither of her two brothers had. She was holding Vykka, who was busy eating more meatball served by Kolyat. He had come over from the kitchen to stand beside Iulia and Vykka, handing down another plate of the hot, seasoned sauce and ground up, breaded meat to the waiting little hands, purple and green. Vykka ate prolifically, Kolyat sitting down and watching with amazement as she took two meatballs and stuffed these in her mouth, one fist at a time. Iulia grinned and looked at Feron, who was hellbent on getting to know the widowed drellahna, and had been invited for that very purpose.

Beside Braith’s right sat a quiet, inconspicuous drell who looked like a younger, domesticated version of Thane. He, too, sat still and looked down at his plate. Only once in a while did he look up at the opposite end of the table, or across from him to Sapphire diligently at work to keep Tringad either asleep or fed, whichever her new son’s state at the moment. Currently, she was feeding him some of the red sauced meat she had broken up with her fingers, and while he nibbled, she looked across the table at Braith. “Miss Shepard, will you be taking the Krios name?”

The question was meant to rouse Braith from her state of dormancy, and had the effect of making her eyes grow round and wide as she looked up from her table space to Sapphire.

The rest of the table quieted as everyone refocused and waited. Rojelio leaned forward to say: “You better, or I’ll start stuffing contraband into some shipments of my own and passing them through Port, telling them Nolyn set me up to do it.” He laughed and looked at Kolyat and Thane who both smiled and raised their eyeridges at Rojelio and his completely in-bad-taste jest.

“I think. . .” Braith started to say. Thane looked across at her, his smile still content. “I think I need to keep Shepard.”

“Why?” Rojelio asked, aiming a palm at her as he rest his elbow on the table. “Your name is about as equal as his—ours, I mean. Krios is legend on Kahje.”

“Was,” Thane corrected, tilting his head to look towards his brother. His gaze returned to Braith, whose eyes went to Iulia as the drellahna leaned forward, shallow as she could with Vykka in the way on her lap and munching more meatballs. She shared her thoughts.

“It doesn’t matter really,” Iulia said with a supportive expression on her yellow chin and green patak. “Drell and drellahna take the name of the more powerful family. So in our case, we outnumber you. . . It would naturally go the Krios way. Unless you cut him off from Nolyn,” she laughed, jestfully glancing at Thane. “Then she could name you with her last name.”

Feron put his arm behind Iulia, along the top of her chair, his right hand’s heel and forearm on the table between him and Braith. “Yeah, but Braith Shepard also saved the galaxy. That alone is pretty powerful, and I don’t think Thane would be too beholden to keeping the Krios name if she insisted he take hers.”

Rojelio sat up straight, incentivized to defend the family name. “I don’t see anything wrong with the Krios name. Mithra, I’ll be the only one to uphold it unless Kolyat here keeps his senses and doesn’t switch to Soterios like his grandparents want him to.”

A flinch was present in at least three pairs of shoulders at the table: Iulia, Sapphire, and Thane. They all turned their heads and glared at Rojelio. “What?” he asked, shrugging his shoulders and raising his palms again. His black gaze shot to Tiran sitting quiet and gazing from the table corner at his uncle. “You could even help me and take up the Krios cause. Vitale. . . Never mind. That’s a strong name. It’s a bad thing what happened to your father.”

“Rojelio!” Sapphire hissed. The baby hiccuped. Rojelio’s head snapped up higher, his black eyes widening.

“What? He’s been gone four years now. It’s time the kid realizes he knows he’s not coming back.”

“I know he’s not coming back,” Tiran stated, his first share of the evening since his greeting with family and new friends a strong and empowered voice. He slowly looked left at his uncle, Braith turning her head to see the profile of a young Thane beside her, and then of something more. Vitale. His black eyes narrowed as the sullen mouth turned away, and shoulders hunched forward, he excused himself quietly and stood to make from the table.

“Tiran,” Braith said suddenly, her eyes waiting for the startled look that met her when the young Drell turned his head to the hostess of this dinner, though she had been late. Her face was turned up towards him, her eye lashes opened and closed, and she beckoned him back with a question. “What did your father do. . . Before the war?” Tiran raised his eyeridges, looking down at the floor, and gradually returned to his seat. Braith continued to watch him, not taking her stare off. Sapphire sat across the table, glancing up at her husband’s nephew and down at Tringad. Thane watched Braith across the plates and glasses between them.

“My father was an agent for the Compact’s clause regarding home surveillance of the holospheres on Kahje. . . He was sent to the war effort when the Reapers came into our galaxy,” Tiran said, his voice young and ridged. He kept looking down at his plate, which had been cleared of everything.

“Would you like some more meatballs, Tiran? There’s pasta, too, and potatoes from Earth,” Braith offered him, leaning forward some and peering at his face. Tiran looked up.

Braith was smiling back at him. Her eyes crinkled at the outer corners, and Tiran could see why Drell found her so attractive. She had a way of making one feel less hurt, or more charmed. He could see freckles on her face, and the lips were tight, full, and smiling. He could smell the floral, stringent scent of bedi smoke in her hair, sitting so close to her, mixed with perfume and her own chemical. She blinked at him, waiting, while the others looked on. He glanced at Thane, who was staring only at Braith, and then Tiran looked to Sapphire. A clearance from another throat caused him to look sharply back at Braith, and he could see his mother’s head leaning out from behind Braith’s right curve of black, framing hair, Iulia staring at him with raising green and purple eyeridges, expecting him to answer sometime this century.

“I would like some. . . Yes, please,” he replied, looking back to Braith. She stood up and left the table, turning her hips to slide through the narrow space between them.

Thane watched her leave into the kitchen, his face turning right with her motion.

“I think we should invite Tiran around more often,” Braith said, laying with her head and shoulders up on white pillows, the comforter and blankets pulled under her elbows, a datapad in both hands. Thin dark straps adorned her shoulders and she did not look up as she spoke. A light from a lamp above her, provided by a bot hovering six feet in the air, cast softly down on her side of the bed. Her eyes scanned back and forth over the datapad as she read what was on display. “I bet he has a lot of internal stuff he needs to get out of his system, and if he works at XED at night and daytime, he probably keeps a lot of it pent up inside him so he doesn’t bother your sister and can help more with baby. . . Vykka’s cute, by the way. She eats a horde of meatballs in one sitting and she looks like she’s twenty-five pounds. . . No way I’m having babies with you. . . I barely feed myself that much and remember to eat.”

Thane stepped in front of the bed at her feet. Braith stopped talking.

She gazed her grey eyes upward over the datapad.

He looked good, green and bare chested with the stripes stretching fingers over his back and shoulders, which were pumped slightly from his late exertion for physical fitness. These swelled a little as his arms were crossed in front of his chest. His pants were on, brown, loose and billowy. The abs beneath his arms and his navel were visible in the glow of light and the green of his patak reflected some as he gazed down at her, quiet, concentrating.

Braith lowered the datapad, dropping it forward and screen up on the bed. She pushed down the comforter and sat up, her breasts’ cleavage revealed above the sheer grey teddy she was wearing. She pushed the straps off, right and left, with each opposite hand, straightened through arching her back, and folded the teddy’s top down to expose her breasts. She drew her left knee up, leaving the other straight, dropped her left ear to shoulder, and raising her right arm, curled her index at him. Thane shook his head, his right hand having risen to block his grin. “Come here,” Braith said, voice soft and low.

“Beg me.”

“Please?”

Thane dropped his arms and rolled his head, eyes rolling, too, behind the lenses. His hands came to the waist hem of his pants and set there, immovable. “You’ll have to do better than that, my dear Braith. Shepard,” he added with a toothier grin.

Braith gripped the sheets and yanked left sweeping the comforter, blankets, and datapad off the bed, staring after the noise of the technology bumping insensitively against the floor because of her action. She looked at Thane, breasts exposed and pendant between her arms as she leaned forwards and, ignoring the possible damage to said datapad despite its having ejected from the sheets by her wrench, crawled forward on knuckles and knees to the end of the mattress. Looking up at him, she kneeled, sidling her knees apart and reaching between her legs to start moving her elbow up and down, fingers doing work between her thighs, and the other hand reached to his brown pants and tried to pull the waistband down.

Thane caught her wrist and gently set it at her right, straightening to resume watching her.

Braith gazed coyly upward at him, black hair falling over her cheek as she gave him a tilted gaze. Her left hand between her legs was still at work.

She stopped, sitting back on her calves, and setting down her hand onto the mattress beside her knee.

“What do you want me to do, Mister Big Bad Thane Assassin,” she husked out mockingly, smiled and giggled, falling backwards with her knees rising up and feet setting on the bed, the teddy exposing her flat belly and navel, breasts up and soft, spreading some to the sides and holding their shape. Her hair lay out on the bed behind her head. Thane reached down with his right hand, grasped her left ankle, and pulled her on the bed towards him. He had an erection, hard and pointed nine inches from the seam of his pants, which was now tented and channeling. Wordlessly, he knelt onto the bed between her thighs, licked his conjoined finger of his right hand, and slid these into her. Braith’s neck arched as she sighed sharply, mouth opening and closing as she tilted her chin back down to peer at him. Thane paused, posting on his left arm, looking at her.

“Where were you tonight?”

“Walking home from work, dear,” she said from the bed. “I told you I got distracted.”

“You told me,” he agreed, nodded, glanced down between her legs. He withdrew his hand. “I heard a strange thing from Tiran before he left tonight, Braith.”

“What did you hear from him? He was pretty quiet.”

“He actually asked me something, which I thought strange. Correction. My apology.”

“No worry. . . What did he ask?”

“He asked me if you smoked bedis.”

“Bedis?” she echoed, eyebrows tilting. “What are bedis?”

“They are flowers from Kahje that carry a medicinal effect meant to alleviate stress and induce endorphins. They are rare to come by these days. I laughed when he asked me, but I did not question his thinking. Tiran comes from a very dedicated family that makes no insinuations without being certain they are right. Iulia does not possess it, though she is careful as I am. It is the father’s side, Vitale, which was ever shrewd and precise.” His gaze went from his fingers to her face. “You were with Casnar, weren’t you.”

“That’s not a question, is it.”

He nodded. “Braith, I do not understand why you put yourself—“

She pushed herself up on stiff arms, breasts bouncing with the sudden action. She threw down the hem of the teddy with her left hand, then proceeded to pull up the top over her chest one globe at a time. “He came to me, Thane. I didn’t go to him.”

“Did you kiss him?”

Her hand stopped on the strap sliding up over her right arm. She turned her face down to the left side of the mattress. “I didn’t mean to.”

“So you tripped and fell and happened to kiss him.”

“He said no.”

Thane remained silent, as did Braith, not looking at him. But he leaned forward, hands on the mattress, and walked these towards her until his naked chest was above hers and his face by her right ear, kissing her hair, earlobe, the skin behind, below, and in front, with his eyes slowly closing. “I love you, Braith,” he murmured with his kissing, “and I believe you have a good soul that forbids you from ignoring the pain of others. . . Come here to me. Face me. . . Siha. . .” She was already turning her face into his, lip pressing and moving her lower mouth to open and suck on his lower roll of flesh that tightened and pressed to hers. She raised her left hand to his patak and tickled the fingers over the smooth, harder leather surface before flowing down against his hot tebris folds, the thin, sensitive skin expanding and contracting against her touch at his neck and cheek. His lower jaw began to vibrate and pulse as he thrummed to her, moving his head left to kiss along her right side of face, across the cheekbone, into the ear where he rasped his teeth and bit down on the ear lobe. Braith’s face turned left as she arched her neck, lifting her jaw to expose the skin in a reply gesture that welcomed a drell to court, and he kissed down her neck from her ear, pressing warmer, wetter mouth prints against her clavicle. He picked up the thin strap of her teddy in his teeth and slid this off her right arm, then shifted his face to close his mouth over the silk on top of her nipple. Braith sighed, parting and closing her lips as she leaned back, allowing him to pull down the teddy from her right breast, lifting his face away briefly to kiss the smooth skin of the mass and move each following press down to the exposed nipple notching from his wet touches and hot, wispy breaths. The vibration from his chest flowed down his arms as he inserted his right finger pair into the slick of heat between her legs, and his elbow glided back and forth as he prepared her for his need. “Siha. . .”

“Thane,” she said and fell backward, breast popping from his mouth. He moved beyond it to join with her lips, tongues poking between their teeth as she turned her face right to him and his line of face intersected the axis of hers. He placed his left arm over her head, sliding his fingers in and out. Her left knee pulled up her foot from the bed, toes extending backwards as he picked up speed and rotated his wrist. Thane push up on his elbow, kissing her more possessively as she began to squeak from deep in her throat.

The sound of the mammal sighs, slow, building faster, deepening, tightened his abs as his length wavered and began to bleed juice through the brown pants. This was her call. This was her signal to him she was ready.

His forearm and wrist moved faster as she heeled his right hip with her foot, urging him closer.

Puffs of air came from her nose against his patak, then her left hand rotated her wrist and elbow to remove the remaining strap on her shoulder and to pull down the left half of her top, both breasts high and firm.

Her fingers gathered up the hem of the teddy’s bottom higher, as she lifted her hips off the bed in an urgent plea.

Her throat tightened in a whine as she turned over, tearing her mouth from his with their tongues disconnecting.

She put her back to him, raising her ass to let his fingers re-enter, but instead, Thane pushed up off the bed, kneeling, sliding off to remove his pants and the nine inches bobbed out, wet and heavy, and sliding his knee in against her right thigh, he probed inward, posting his hands either side of her and bending his hips to curl below his lower back.

“Fuck,” Braith cursed softly and lowered her head into the nook of her arms, elbows bent to right angles on the bed above her head. Black hair fanned out over her skin.

Thane made a long, deep grunt as he lowered to his left elbow, slid his right knee under her same leg and tilted her hips diagonally to start his course of thrusts, teasing at the inside from an oblique angle, and glancing down at her leg position, back to her head. He rubbed her scooped lower back with his spread right hand before sliding this along her outer thigh to grasp the knee, lift the leg straight, and bend his hips in longer, moving deeper.

“Fuck. . .” Braith breathed from between her arms. “That’s so good right there, Thane.”

“I agree,” he throttled deep from his throat, face a tension of concentration, attentive to her body and comfort, knowing where she was pleased, so would he be. Her heat was hot and wet, the soft slurping of juices from her own body expelled to let him know she was aroused and that her body remembered him, welcomed him, produced more to keep him as he was. They were perfectly coupled, she a deer for him, he a stag for her, and this was the norm of their lovemaking. No straps or leathers. Just lovemaking. “I love you, Braith.”

“I love you, too, darling.” She flattened her palms on the bed, pushed down on her forearms and rose up, breasts swaying forward and backward from his impetus now that they were free from being compressed. The teddy rung about her mid-back.

Thane rose with her, kissing her side below her left arm as he released her right leg to slide his hand back up her hip. He positioned himself behind her, arranging his knees and not missing a beat in the rhythm he was letting her enjoy.

He rubbed her lower back with the flat of his hard palm, flattened a tap against the tight arch before moving his hands to both hips. His hands parted for a moment to clap the flesh, curl in his fingers to the scoop of muscle and hip bone, and pulled her hard back onto him with a new speed, amped up only a little, letting her call out with the higher huffs and thanks and inane mutterings of a woman with her legs wet, her seam lubricating a shaft that was hard as metal and soft and smooth outside the swell.

Her fingers curled into the liner, face tilted left as he urged more slick from her. “Come out for me, Braith,” he whispered, holding onto her with one hand over her left ass cheek, the other cupping her right thigh and teasing inward towards her groin. “Show me how wet you are when I touch you here.” His fingers slid further as he bent his head right, peering down at the green and black wrist disappearing inch by inch until he located the smoothness she kept maintained for sex and began to rub the folds of innocuous yet mind-spinning, pleasure inducing flesh. His hips maintained the same steady thrust as Braith panted, crying out repeatedly in slight gasps as he rubbed and rocked into her.

She suddenly moaned: “Oh god—oh god—oh god!”

“Yes. That’s right. Good.” His black crown bands bent to the entry of the bedroom, he straightened his neck, moved both hands to the sides of her hips and rushed her with repeatedly hard, deep strokes, tugging her tight to him as his lips pressed firm together and he looked down at his member sliding in and out between her ass cheeks. Every third stroke he drove in harder, then followed up with the steady depth and accurate pace as before that third punishing attack that cracked the exquisite, appeased moans from her belly.

 _Fuck you, Braith._ Her grey eyes opened and winced at the memory combined with her attentive lover’s train of pleasure. Braith squeezed her eyes shut, turning her face left, trying to shut out the face of Casnar in the street looking at her after they’d kissed.

The look of torture, lust, anger, and. . . She didn’t want to think that. She tried to ignore it, but the vision was persistent.

So she focused on Thane and turned her head to see him with that pensive, precipice-of-climax-but-not-letting-himself-go-over face, and his gaze snapped to hers as his lips parted in reaction to her glance over the shoulder. _Fuck, he’s hot. Why can’t I enjoy this? He wants me and he makes me happy. . . So why the fuck is Casnar in my head right how?_ she thought, turning to face forward again and suddenly seeing Casnar under her, looking up at her face with a vulnerableness on a drell so strong and so proud all the time. . .

Except when she was riding him, his hands holding her, green eyes worshipping her as he was about to come. And they always came together. And it was a fucking mess with how much he came inside her. _Stop. . . Stop thinking about Casnar!_

She was shaking, mouth open as Thane’s hardness drilled into her. _It was just as good if not better,_ she told herself, feeling the swell coming through her groin to the brain in her skull, rush of serotonin and endorphins and whatever the hell else Cerberus rebuilt her with that made her body heal maddeningly, freakishly fast, but couldn’t give her a goddamn boost in biotic ampage. _What the fuck? Why am I thinking about my resentment over lack of biotic power right now? I know. . . Because when Casnar raped me my biotics didn’t do shit! Goddamn it, Miranda!_ She cried out in anguish and climax, Thane releasing a hoarse _hmmph_ as he pounded her from behind, stopped suddenly, pushed her hips down and coaxed her to rotate onto her back, and placing her calfs on his sculpted, venom slicked and oily shoulders, pressed his beading forest green chest against her thighs.

He pistoned into her bald lipped heat.

“Fuck. . .” she whimpered, grabbing and twisting the liner of the mattress, breasts jouncing around at his enduring thrusts. Her voice even vibrated with the speed of his beat.

The muscles on his forearms and upper arms, shoulders, chest, and neck swelled and tightened with blood pumping through his body. He was knotted as tight as a wet rope, and equally slick with drell sweat, venom, and oil.

The skin of her thighs turned red with his contact, not from irritation, but because he was smacking into her so hard with a body as dense as ore. He slowed only to push in deep and drag out her orgasm as she gasped and cried out, wetting his legs and appendages in between in a coating that was familiar and welcome to him. And then he sped up without warning, using the new slip and slide to take the breath away from her exhale.

Braith arched on the top of her head, shouting a ululating moan as Thane joined her with a rough haw and came. He rushed harder, slapping the right flesh of her thigh and gritting his teeth as he threw his head up, hips bucking with determination from lost primal mating tendencies to purge further even after the main explosive rush. His crimson tebris spread, a final mating signal that he had claimed a female, the broad dark chest gleaming oil and reflecting the bot light from above. A rush of air left his throat as he roughly moaned, shouted for mithra, and Braith, eyes closing as her head rolled to the side in the sweat of her temple and hair, orgasms four and five rippling through and making her hazy with mind-spinning post-coital lust and euphoria, whispered: “I love you, Cas—Thane, I mean.”

Thane stared at her, chest heaving, heart pumping, girth locked inside her as her tight breasts softly rose and fell with her breathing. He gripped her right ankle behind his shoulder, lifted it forward, stopped, and sagged his left crest’s ridge against her skin.


	41. The Faithful Assassin

Casnar’s trench coat curled up towards the edge of his jawline. His green eyes could be seen in the light as the line of it between darkness and glow from the entrance showed over the left side of his face. “B’akura,” he said, voice low and purred, the yellow lips cunning into a smile.

His hands were by his sides, the black gloves on, swinging loosely as he made along the wall, parting with the triangle of light he had come through for the inmates’ holding area. B’akura had his orange, white, and black tiger-striped face turning left over his shoulder, looking at the unexpected arrival of the drell from his conversation with another cell inmate.

“Casnar?” he roughly greeted the drell, a bit of awe in his voice. “What are you doing out of house arrest?” He twisted suddenly right, following the drell stalking him from along the shadow cast between the corner of the imprisoning cell wall and floor. Casnar was dark, his left glove going into his pocket as he walked to B’akura’s right, eyes following the nervous batarian and ignoring the others.

“You look good, B’akura, for being in a jail cell.”

“How did you even get in here?”

“I have access,” he brushed off lightly, looking forward and to the right. He stopped and raised his right arm along the wall, depressing his fist against a flush square built into another. An ID scanner acknowledged his omni watch beneath the slip of his sleeve, and a door panel slid open. The incoming light revealed the walls were navy blue inside the penitentiary of Lothairaxl. Casnar stood by the newly lit exit, returning his right arm to his side, and tilted his smooth crests for B’akura to leave. “I’m taking you,” he said.

Wordlessly, B’akura passed a glance to his cellmate, and pursing his upper lip into his lower one, he left without saying goodbye. Casnar gazed over the others, and something chilled them all in his expression—that they knew he would remember their faces. A born killer. He followed after B’akura. The door slid closed after his dark trench swept through, the prisoners all staring at each other and back to the locking grid.

In the outer hall, lit pale and light, Casnar walked with B’akura on his right, the batarian unquestioningly keeping pace with his freer. Casnar’s green eyes, sharp and bright, looked ahead of them as they walked, both hands in his pockets, restraining himself from smelling the scent of Braith upon his glove’s fingers. B’akura gazed sidelong at him. His right side of whiskers twitched his mouth. “You okay, Casnar? You’re awfully quiet.”

“Never been better,” the drell replied low and grounding. Inside, he was fuming about Braith, and what he wanted to do with her if only he had time. He loved her much, that was what he knew, and everything in his power was being done to rectify what injuries she had sustained now that he could be free and about. What made him hurt so much? The fact she was Thane’s? The fact he wanted her like Thane wanted her and _had_ her. “Never better,” he grated again, much softer this time. B’akura set his face into a blank slate and returned his furry expression forward, the black eyes slitting. “You could have done better with the transponder location,” he chastised the drell. “The coat. Expensive loss, that was.”

“Only the best will do for my Braith, B’akura. . . Only the best will do.” Casnar picked up his pace, abruptly moving ahead of B’akura to the next door to come up on their right. His eyes glanced left ahead of them, lingering down the hall as he stood before the door and removed something from his waist-pant inside his jacket. “I have plans that need working out, B’akura. Another shipment, I think. . . You will like what I have in store. . .”

“What about my brothers and sister?” B’akura asked anxiously.

“They will be there, too. Waiting.“ Casnar revealed a black card, devoid of any detail. “You are the last one I have had to pick up.”

“Thank you,” B’akura replied gratefully, nodding his head for this information. “You are thoughtful to have taken care of them first. . . They are all I have. . .”

“I know,” Casnar replied absently, raising the card and sliding it against a reader on the wall. “The cameras are off for a short time,” he continued, blocking the doorway with his body as he looked to B’akura. “I have gone ahead and deactivated the necessary systems. There will be no evidence of your record. Nothing to confirm you were here. All questions to be asked will have no answers found because nothing will exist to confirm these.”

“I promise to hold up our end of the bargain,” B’akura replied, nodding his head vigorously again, eager to get out of the penitentiary and reunite with his brothers and sister. “No questions asked.” He licked his lips, trying to decipher the drell’s impassive expression.

“You will, B’akura, you will,” Casnar replied, smiling as he offered his hand towards the door and stepping backward, his hand going beneath his jacket. B’akura obediently followed through, and a little noise was heard, akin to a gasp, as he entered the room and saw what laid in store. It was simultaneous with Casnar raising his left hand from his trench, revealing a long, sinister gun that he pulled the trigger twice on, one at head level, then lowering to the chest. Following the slumping weight of B’akura’s heavy body, Casnar stepped through the doorway, which sealed behind him as he replaced the gun inside his trench. The hall was empty again, and silent, while retributions were being made in the next room over.

Staring down at her from the calf he nestled his head against, Thane’s face tensed and then fell with sadness.

Braith’s eyes opened and she laid still for a moment before looking down towards him. “Thane, I’m—“

He shook his head, eyes wincing tighter as he turned his face into her skin and pressed his lips there against her calf. He lowered it, with his gaze opening and partly lidded. “Braith, I think—“

She withdrew her legs from him, tucking this to her as she pushed up off the bed and traveled the sheets to comfort him, sliding her hands on his green, pulsing chest and butting her head against his, her eyes open still, staring ahead.

“I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“You have feelings for him.” Thane glanced into her eyes, back down between them. “You have feelings for him. . . I—“

“I don’t know why, Thane—I’m sorry!” she whispered, half moaned urgently into his face. She lowered hers against his neck, Thane lifting his head to gaze forward. His lips were firm. A movement beneath his tebris a swallow of angst.

He rubbed her skin, felt the sweat, stopped, and stepped backwards, sliding his knees one after the other off the bed. She followed with him, holding on, and Thane’s left hand had not left her skin at her lower back. He faced the opposite wall, intent on the bathroom, but when she did not let him leave, he turned again to her and raised his right hand to cup her chin.

Braith stared into his eyes, looking at him once again. “Please, I know it’s not—“

“Braith, I need to shower. So do you. Come.” It was no order, only a husband’s request to his wife that she join him. It wasn’t forgiveness. Braith followed him from the bed across the floor into the bathroom.

He held her hand while he ran the water for the shower, turning it hot as she liked it. They waited in silence together. Thane letting his hand feel the temperature of the spray and steam. Braith with her forearm crossed over her chest, fingers touching her right shoulder as she watched him. Grey eyes wide. “There was a time when I thought nothing could come between us,” Thane said, his voice low, idling with the lover’s purr he had remaining from their passion. He stared down at the drain. “Now I wonder. . . What could Casnar have besides a _viciousness_ that you are drawn to?” he asked, turning his face to her. She stared back at him, and he brought his eyes again to the shower, then led her in.

Against the tiles with her back feeling the cold, hard ceramic, he cupped both her shoulders and they kissed. The steam clouded them, Thane’s back burning from the spray. His hands slid down her upper arms. Head and crests leaning left, he tasted and indulged in the warmth of her mouth, her lips, shielding her from the spray, keeping her cool despite Braith’s need for the hot, scalding water.

His dark mouth traveled over the strip of muscle joining her raising jaw to her collarbone, setting his teethwhites against and indenting the skin some.

Braith’s black lashes fell back and closed, hair black and dampening around her porcelain skin.

Thane’s black and green crests and spines wove as he massaged with tender bites down over her breast, scraping the round teat so that it puckered again. Braith could feel his hands kneading the tops of her thighs, towards the middle, fingers turned down and in to part the flesh of her legs. His thumbs caressed upside down, rubbing the skin with feeling strokes.

“You were everything to me, aboard the Normandy,” he said, voice low and husked, bringing his mouth to hers and tilting his browscale to touch. “Let me make you happy, Braith. . . I know I can be that for you.”

 _The war made me who I am, Thane,_ she thought, eyes opening as he lifted his away to her gaze. _There is nothing left inside but what violence can fulfill_. . . His right hand came to her cheek, pressing into the skin and caressing downward. His head tilted right, studying her as she reclosed her eyes and turned lips to his knuckles, pushing these to touch him. He stepped away, hand falling from her mouth, and Braith opened her eyes, lifting her face to gaze after him.

“Let me wash you,” Thane said, turning towards a stand built into the wall with bars of pastelsoap collecting in the scallop of its form. He picked up a blue one and brought his hands together, rotating it with the hot water on his hands. Steam floated around them, covering her lower half. He moved his hands over the soap bar until a blue lather began to form, and moving these to her breasts, started the massage there. She raised her arms, extending these up along the wall and lifting her chin up, bringing her breasts higher. His erection, hidden below the steam, angled higher with a twinge. Braith lifted her left knee and extended it to reach him, using her heel to prod at his thigh, black and green. She urged him to slide his arms behind her back, down to the curve of her ass. He did so and lowered his hips a few inches, rising straight, inside her. Braith exhaled as her demanding look sank into the drell’s own stare, and her arms bent to the sides along the wall before coming around to clasp his elbows and pull him to her. The soap dropped with a loud thud to the shower floor, forgotten.

Suds trailed down her calves to slip into the swirling water running in a line between his feet and into the drain.


	42. Chapter 42

The next day found Thane clasping his hands in front of his face, staring over his knuckles. The grey of the floor in the hangar beneath Nolyn was matching his mood. Braith stood six feet away, decked in another black and white suit. Her pants and jacket were black. Her shoes black. The collar white, but as she turned away from Garrus, the inside of her suit revealed a royal swathe of blue. Her black hair coifed along her cheeks, styled to curve around her face. Kolyat walked over to discuss something with her as she held a datapad along her side, fingers pointing behind her, her left hand bent on her waist, white cuffs peeking through her jacket sleeve.

“What’s this about a pay raise?” Garrus asked. He leaned forward over Braith, who turned from Kolyat to look up at him. Kolyat turned his face towards the turian as well.

“I said,” Braith repeated herself to the eavesdropper on her and Kolyat’s conversation, “since you two have been doing so well, and the rest of Cabal,” she nodded towards the crew operating around the ship’s lowered ramp, “we are going to raise the pay by six percent. Move up with the costs I’m seeing rise with the state of Lothairaxl’s economy.” She pressed her lips together. Garrus peered down at her.

“Okay, so does that mean I can finally buy myself a new set of shares? Or am I going to be caught in the race to qualify for a whole new _navarre_ like the prick you’ve got flying with us to Nos Astra.” Braith lowered her eyebrows at Garrus’s remarks.

“I’m sending him off planet,” she said, glancing at Kolyat. “He can’t do any damage out in the Traverse. . . Besides, despite his shenanigans,” she shrugged, “I can’t say he’s been trying to hurt us since he’s been in confinement for the past four months.”

Garrus swung a look to Kolyat, flattening his stare. “I can’t believe he gets his own _navarre_.”

Kolyat grinned and shifted his weight to his other hip. He raised a hand. “I think it has more to do with his business and intelligence acumen. He’s been performing well under duress.”

“Doesn’t mean he should get a promotion.” Garrus closed his mandibles back, looking right over Braith’s head as he crossed his long arms. Braith and Kolyat both turned their heads.

Thane looked up left, raising his head and straightening. The hangar went quieter at the sound of quick shoes clipping in. Casnar appeared, looking like he was dressed for the office instead of a space flight. He didn’t look at anyone else as he stopped next to Kolyat and stared at Braith.

Garrus set his claws on his hips, stepping wider as he looked at the yellow drell wearing a cream suit and white dress shirt underneath. He had a hat on his head, tipped down as he bent his head forward and spoke directly to Braith, as calm as the commander her crew knew her to be.

“I’m leaving,” he said. He straightened, eyes still with hers. There was a jacket over one arm, a large case in the other. “I’ve decided to quit Nolyn. I have a flight scheduled for this afternoon from Port Mother. I’m leaving, Braith. . . It’s what’s best.” He was met with silence. Kolyat and Garrus leaned back a bit, shocked. Braith made no reply.

Thane stared at Casnar, looked at Braith, stared back to Casnar. He rose from the crate he was sitting on and started to take two steps forward, then stopped.

Casnar’s green eyes blinked at her. There was a very disappointed look in his gaze. He breathed in and out, the brim of his hat shading his eyes. His lips tensed, parted as if to add something else, but without speaking a word, he turned and walked away.

“Don’t, Braith,” Garrus said, smelling the pheromonal rush that crashed between the two.

Braith stared after him. She looked down to the right at the ground, back up to where Casnar departed to.

Thane’s face was riveted on Braith.

“Right,” she said, lowering her gaze to the datapad she brought forth from her hip. She held it with both hands. Her lips pressed together. The tension spread to her face.

Her skin was flushing white where her fingers squeezed into the datapad’s rubber border.

Kolyat brought his gaze up from Braith’s hands to her face. He turned, and as he did, he put his arm over her.

Braith’s arm blocked upwards, her elbow out as her shoulders hunched and head lowered in a shielding manner. “I’m fine. . . I need a moment, but I’m fine.”

“You need a new COO?” Garrus asked, offering himself. He rest his claw on her right shoulder.

“I’m fine,” she reiterated. “I need a new COO, but I’m fine.”

Casnar gazed ahead under the brim of his hat as he made his way through the spacious halls beneath Nolyn tower. He cleared his throat and blinked, glancing to his right. He lifted his head a little higher, walking off the tension he felt from being in that hangar bay. The sound of shoes, clipping over the great tiles, made him roll his eyes and breathe out suddenly, shrugging up his coat and hurrying. Braith and Thane came out of the hangar door behind him.

“Casnar, goddamn it. You turn around and get back here,” Braith commanded, hair pulling back from her face.

Casnar stopped, his face to the lights in the ceiling. Braith stopped eight steps behind him, Thane close to her left shoulder. “What the hell, Casnar? What makes you think you can walk away?”

 _From me?_ her face asked as he turned his left shoulder to look at her. Her arms folded beneath her bust as she leaned back and tilted her head right to stare at him wonderingly, grey eyes wide, expression incredulous. Thane stood behind her, his own expression null of emotion. _A protector_ , Casnar thought as he took his brother-in-law in. Thane placed his right hand on Braith’s left shoulder.

“I can’t do this, Braith,” Casnar said, raising out his right arm with the jacket on it, the left case still suspended in his opposite grip. His shoulders rose and fell with a breath. “I need to go home. It’s the only way I’ll heal.” He glanced at Thane and her individually. “You want me, you know where to find me. . . Ask Kolyat or him,” Casnar said looking beyond them, then nodding to Thane. He lingered a look at Braith, then pulled away.

“What about Nos Astra, Cas?” Braith demanded, her shoulders tensing forward. Casnar paused and turned to look at her, a darkness in his expression. His eyes narrowed.

“Nos Astra can run efficiently with Nolyn sending Vega. It’s an operation all its own,” he replied.

“I don’t want—I gave it to you,” she said. “You’re part of Nolyn.” _I’m part of you._

“No, Braith. I don’t want it.” His glare was cold. He turned his face and strode off, leaving Nolyn for good.

Outside the tower, Casnar stepped to the black limo by which Asim waited by the open door in back. He took his hat off brusquely, lowered down to the seats. The limo shifted on its bed of air with his weight. Asim closed the door and walked around the rear to his side.

“Asim, bring me to the pool gardens,” Casnar ordered. He pulled off his gloves, one by one, and slapped these down on the cushions to his right as through the windows the view rose, Asim controlling the skyrunner into its ascent. “Fuck this place,” Casnar said, glancing right out the window, his left hand falling to rest on the suitcase at his side. His elbow sleeve crossed the middle of the caramel-colored leather. Strips of chrome locks ran around its bordering lip. Casnar gazed down upon it. Picking the case up with both hands, he set it upon his lap and opened it facing him, lid to the front of the limo. His eyes fixed to its contents.

Braith’s dress gleamed and shimmered back at him. He placed his right hand on the dress, moving his fingers over it in thought.

Casnar’s gaze went back to the right of the limo’s windows. He stared beyond these, still thinking.


	43. Chapter 43

Hands over her face, Braith took a deep breath and sighed. She lowered both, looking right, away from the glow of a lamp before her in Nolyn Enterprises. _Six months,_ she thought to herself. _Six months and he still hasn’t contacted me._

She arose from her desk, a body shimmering in the perfect cup of a dress that defined her figure, illuminated her underarms in the trickle of light it bestowed, as well upon her jaw, breasts, and neck. Contoured to her body like a suit of armor made from star ice, it remanufactured each motion she made with its glitter cast against the walls, the floor, and her skin with an iridescence that shimmered from her lamp. Her hair was swept in a waving crest over her head, the collar of the dress stopping below the frame of skin beneath her jaw. She walked out from behind her desk, moving to the window on the right of her office.

Braith’s right side of face was framed by the fallen black tresses styled to flow over her ear. Neck clasped at the back and sides by the elongated structure of the collar, her straight shoulders supported the heavy garment’s straps that opened in front to spill her skin in scalloping curves waving down to her breasts, where the dress joined in a hint of a defined curve of cleavage, as though hands were sensually cupping the swells. She cast a luminous glow even in the darkly lit interior of the office.

Fragments of the mirror dress reflected against the window she could see herself in. Hands fell to her waist, fingers pointed forward and holding her thighs as she turned right and left, studying the fit. Each arch of the dress was a hand measured and conformed to fit her so precisely. _Could it really be from him_? she thought, moving her fingers to the overlapping petal trims falling over her waist and spreading just below mid-thigh. The dress hugged her perfectly as a bud, twisted tight, unopened, and yet so easy to move about in. It was as if each step she took, the gown wished to unveil and celebrate every movement.

Her lips touched together in a relaxed joining of flower petals painted bare, bases touching together. She took a breath through her nose, deepening to her belly. _No restriction there_. Bending her knee, she watched it slip forward between the parting curtains flowing apart in the middle of her skirts. A shoe that matched the dress stepped put, toes covered and pointed down at the carpet. The shoes had arrived separately from the dress. Both times, the sender anonymous. No return receipts.

The glass doors slid apart as two black dress shoes set onto the carpet. “Do you like it.”

Braith’s eyes grew round as her reflection in the glass turned right towards the front of the office.

It was Thane. Standing in a white suit coat, tailored to his handsome figure with black pants underneath, he held his arms behind his back. Black and green crests raised towards the high ceiling, he gazed expectantly at her from the dimly lit hallway outside her office. The lights were down for the evening’s affair, all employees gone to attend the gala for XED and Nolyn Enterprises’ union.

Braith held her breath, only letting this out slow as her lips pulled higher in a smile. “Never mind,” Thane said, adding his smile to hers, “you look a _vision_.” He said this with an amazed shake of his head.

As she stepped towards him, the petal folds spread with each cream thigh, toned and haloed with the shimmer of the diamondesque stones. Her shoes sparkled, picking up the light from the lamp passing on her left, and both Braith and the regal gown still seemed to glow as she came to stand in a moment before him. His head spines tilted upward as his gaze moved down, reviewing everything again, though his memory was incapable of forgetting. When his eyes arose back to hers, Thane dipped from his waist, hands tight at his sides. He drew upward after a pause in his bow, right elbow bending as he did so. An offer.

“Would you,” he asked, eyes reflecting her light, “accompany an old drell assassin to the gala taking place below.”

Braith took his arm, and covered his hand in her own. “Yes,” she replied, head tilting right. Thane brushed the black hair from her eye, and kissed Braith affectionately before stepping back with a slow pivot on his heel. A tender look between each other, they walked towards the doors together. And through the glass walls, the transparent doors slid closed behind them.


End file.
